antoine semhoun aka andy santori man on the moon

Antoine Semhoun is a painter; a self-taught painter. He has acquired a vast visual culture with encyclopedic pictorial and film references. The characters, portraits and self-portraits in his work are recurring motifs.
When he tires of the human subject, he substitutes angels or demons in a binary balancing act between good and evil. A vibrant palette of vivid colors characterizes his visual language. Brushstrokes, spills of paint right onto the canvas, scratches resulting from rapid, and vigorous gestures, but also coagulations and effusions testifying to physical reactions. Material to bring the paintings to life; the thickness of the material, superimpositions and frequent - sometimes untimely - overpainting, echoing the multiple layers of the artist’s references.
Legendary personalities such as Muhammad Ali and Rocky Balboa populate his inner world. For the artist, they share a common role model. He describes Rocky as an everyday hero common hero with whom we can identify, in whom we can recognize ourselves.
At the same time, Antoine Semhoun demonstrates an acute awareness of the compelling forces of destiny a fatalism that can be seen in his fascination with tragic artists such as Jean-Michel Basquiat, Vincent Van Gogh or Egon Schiele, or the life of the fictional character Carlito
Brigante, a prisoner of his past, as told by Brian de Palma’s Carlito’s Way.
Similarly, the obsessive theme of the ineluctable passage of time is omnipresent. In his artist’s urgency to create, to deliver his message and to see his artistic dream through to the end. of his artistic dream, despite the trials and tribulations. As far as he is concerned, Antoine Semhoun feels he has “wasted time”. Understanding and coming to terms with his differences is a constant task, and one that requires but, like Rocky, Antoine has picked himself up and is moving forward. From the rich vein that has formed in his cracks, he brings out the source from which he draws his creativity.

Excerpts from the text man on the moon, Antoine Semhoun aka Andy Santori by Jennifer Flay, to be published in the catalog accompanying the exhibition.