Born of a fascination with codes, Rémi Balligand’s work is part of an aesthetic quest that has left its mark on conceptual painting practices. His work explores the invisible forces that govern reality, going beyond simple pictorial practice. He places himself more in the realm of experimentation than painting for its own sake, exploring both the formal and metaphysical aspects of his art. The result is a body of work that is both meditative and deceptively minimalist. It oscillates between the organic and the geometric, between the elegance of natural forms and the rigor of angular lines, in a diversity of formats and subtle textures that enrich the visual experience. Yet their apparent simplicity hides an underlying complexity.

Rémi Balligand always begins with a graphic representation and then moves on to the structure underlying the form, taking into account the initial conditions of perception that it reveals to the light. This approach is present in the Blaaak percept , which serves as the basis for the Éclipse series. This series is characterized by a surface composed of ultra-black, from which drawing and material emerge, before unfolding in other associated works. At first glance, these creations may evoke constructions inspired by mathematical processes, such as paintings made from wires stretched between nails, or drawings of dots connected according to numerical sequences. But the comparison stops there. These are first and foremost geometric designs aimed at reducing motifs to their essence, eliminating all depth and illusion of perspective. The result is pure surfaces that look as if they have been programmed algorithmically.

Similarly, the works in the La Matrice series , inspired by nature and composed of arborescences – coal facets, roots, corals, crystals, plant twigs or animal interlacing – present recurring motifs that could be observed at increasingly finer scales. They evoke creations generated by fractal geometry software or revealed by microscopic observation. Through these structural explorations, the artist suggests the impossibility of directly accessing the heart of his subject, unless one can decipher its code. It’s a quasi-mystical quest for the beauty of the world, which the artist believes can only be revealed to those who possess the keys.

Rémi Balligand’s work is not simply about the surface. If he attaches particular importance to plastic materiality in his work, it’s not least because of their relationship to depth, to innervated, rhizomatic and interwoven aspects, often concealed, and eluding superficial observation. Each of his works metaphorizes a latent horizontality, capable of linking in depth the elements that the artist’s drawings represent connected on the surface. The idea is to transcend the simple organic dimension of the living to explore the notion of code that encompasses it.

Questions then arise: how can we access the beauty of the world beyond mere perception? How can we discover its true essence if it is only revealed through the senses? This requires going beyond a purely sensualist approach, which would be limited to simple sensory experience, to reach a deeper understanding, requiring a coded interpretation of reality. In this way, the artist sees the world as the product of complex algorithms, a perspective that stems from a logical empiricism rooted in the dual philosophical traditions of rationalism and empiricism.