Num
“Moule ta femme”
“Mold your wife”
Dem’s work is centered around matter. Raised in France during the 1990s and the 2000s, he grew up surrounded by the fantastic and psychedelic universe of second half of the 20th century comics (Moebius, Enki Bilal, Jodorowski…), by Hugo Pratt’s poetic and travel universe and by science fiction literature (Frank Herbert, Isaac Asimov, Philip K. Dick, Aldous Huxley…). To these inspirations hip hop and techno cultures were also gradually added, as well as a more classical culture mainly influenced by Camille Claudel’s and Da Vinci’s works.
His work was soon to be oriented towards the reconstitution of post-apocalyptic universes and the inclusion of man in this universe. Passionate about bodies and matter, he naturally chose sculpture and the creation of installations. Rather than working with noble and high-quality materials, he has always preferred working with salvage and materials not intended for artistic creation (polystyrene, plastic film, tarpaulin, construction wood…). An important part of his work consists in the reproduction of textures, through this approach he keeps with art the same sensual relation that he has with the human body.
He is fascinated by human beings, their body, and their emotions. He sculpts women’s bodies thanks to the plaster molding technique. This technique appears to be the best way to reproduce human vitality and sensuality. He then includes these bodies in small, medium, or large-scale installations representing a universe that is at the same time technoid, urban, fantastic, and even oniric. Mainly self-taught and evolving for several years among Paris artists’ squats, he most of the time works in interaction with his audience.
I would say that his work, conceptually but also materially speaking, is a proposal synthesizing the late 20th and the early 21st century Western human society. Born in 1990, he is a child of « post » – post-revolutions, post-World War II, post Cold War. And he grew up in a world qualified as postmodern by philosophy. He is a child of a world in constant movement both politically (globalization, emerging new geopolitical balances…) and culturally (the arrival of the Internet, the development of urban culture, techno culture, and gaming or geek culture…).
Visual artist and sculptor. For several years he has been working on molding women’s bodies. Dem Dillon has worked with many models, both close or unknown, on his initiative or by order. He has created sculptures for public display, but also for people who want to keep a footprint of their bodies or of their loved ones. The technique of molding allows everyone to create a unique work based on someone they love, they entrust the body to the artist who will restore its beauty, power, and fragility It is a footprint of a body, immortalized with the unique style of Dem. The molding is also personal work for the buyer, it’s the result of his desires and imagination. It is a fusion of reality and fantasy, the final sculpture is thus a meeting point between the real of the organic body, the subjective feeling of the one who ordered the work, and the artist’s gaze.
His work then naturally consists in a fusion. A fusion of Merging genres, including references to classical sculpture into urban art. Mixing matters and textures. According to him, is the parallel melting of two realities– reproducing the vitality and the beauty of bodies in a disillusioned society waiting for the final apocalypse or for a new world.
I would say that his work, conceptually but also materially speaking, is a proposal synthesizing the late 20th and the early 21st century western human society. Born in 1990, he is a child of « post » – post-revolutions, post World War II, post Cold War. And he grew up in a world qualified as postmodern by philosophy. He is a child of a world in constant movement both politically (globalization, emerging new geopolitical balances…) and culturally (the arrival of Internet, the development of urban culture, of techno culture, and of gaming or geek culture…).
Num
