JOACHIM ROMAIN

FRAGMENTS

25/01 - 29/03 2025

The exhibition Fragments evokes the changes, mutations and transformations we experience throughout life - of landscapes, of our neighbourhoods, ourselves, the people around us, our societies…

Different rhythms emanate from Joachim Romain unique canvases and sculptural work playing with perception, with matters and textures.

How to navigate ? How to adapt to different situations ? How to reclaim our spots ? By shapeshifting perhaps, and surely by bending the rules, making the world ours.

Joachim Romain tears up, scratches, lacerates, engraves, scrapes, layers and layers of posters, billboard images, stickers to create dynamic portraits. Indeed, whether on the streets or in his studio, Joachim deciphers the movements of the street, the speed, the unknown, the surprises you can find at the next corner, the shocks and encounters of several worlds. From large avenues to tortuous streets, a warehouse or a palace we dwell around, it is an invitation to wander and get lost.

Joachim’s work is the act of following an intuition, of being street smart. Here, eyes are sparkling. His black and white figures - whether icons or anonymous - blend in the environment he creates with vivid colours, volume and shape.

One can think about the French “affichistes” or poster artists tradition, but Joachim Romain’s work goes way beyond…

Joachim brings back the discarded, the scrapped into our scope, into our daily lives. Reverse the idea of waste.

For Fragments at Galerie Carole Kvasnevski, Joachim Romain evokes the mass consumption, the hectic pace of life, the frenzy leaving you out of breath for a moment, the dizziness felt induced by our environment filled with enticing colours, sounds, shapes, the daily shot of serotonin all these products we are one click away from finally own give us. The quest for a meaning to our existence while we are doomscrollling to no end. The fragments of memories, of the past and of the future. Romain gently offers moments of pause, respirations we can all benefit from.



Fragments shows his latest work on paper, canvas, sculpture, and some of his signature three-dimensional volumes pieces made with brass or aluminum.

Fragments is a manifesto, for the love of photography, the love of images, the love of the ephemeral, the love of the eternal, a manifest for the love of art, the love of freedom.