Sylvain Ciavaldini

If, in its commonly accepted sense, art often has to do with the imagination, Sylvain Ciavaldini's oeuvre seems to express this link with rare emphasis (a conviction). The fact is that there is in this work, which makes drawing and sculpture its preferred means of expression, a sort of amazement at what deals with the unknown and the unreal. This territory of forms, colours, peremptory and merry words ("Desire contains the absolute", "Reality is implacable"), cries of (disturbed) birds and graphic digressions, sketches a cheerful world in which escape and quirkiness seem to be necessities.
It is nevertheless by relying on reality that this world is built, drawing on popular culture, current events and scientific data. So we have this black mass which we know more or less nothing about except that it exists somewhere (and that it forms 90% of the universe), in which Sylvain Ciavaldini sees the possible place where things of the imagination exist. A territory of dreams which becomes invasive and gradually merges with the real world. In this invigorating work we find wit, mockery and narrative. Behind the playful surface, however, are sometimes hidden anxieties, doubts, and questions. With levity, Sylvain Ciavaldini's works also express the difficulties of making oneself heard and understood in the hubbub of the contemporary world. Translated by Simon Pleasance