Biography
Bastien Lecouffe Deharme, aka “B.” is a french artist living in the United States.
For him, writing and creating pictures are not dissociable activities. Thus he builds Retrocity, inspired by his references: the classics of science fiction, mixed with a healthy dose of “romans noirs” (Thrillers), movies and music.
Illustrator, painter, photographer and writer he uses digital tools to mix these different techniques. He likes to use photography to “take” pieces of our reality, and to make them switch to another. Retrocity, the universe of his graphic-novel is constructed with parts of our world.
Meanwhile, he makes covers for books and famous authors like Chuck Palahniuk, Frank Herbert, HPLovecraft, Theodore Sturgeon, Robin Hobb, Melanie Fazi …
Beyond his work as an illustrator, he works on art pieces for exhibitions, and sometimes takes the role of artistic director. Including events such as the exhibitions Venus Robotica and Phantasms at the Cabinet des Curieux (Paris), in association with Thierry Ruby.
Bastien Lecouffe Deharme was born in 1982.
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The way I work …
I usualy work all night long, surrounded by my machines in my small confined space. Computer, graphic tablet, camera, Coca Cola and cigarettes. It’s both an obsession and endless pleasure (most times). To be honest, I have the impression that there are tons of stories in my head, that I need to unload; it’s not just that “I want to draw” … My work thus is an assortment of techniques (photography, drawing, digital painting) that allows me to “tell stories”.
I try not to freeze the creative process. Every picture I draw is dealt very differently from the others. Most times, I begin with a sketch (on paper or a digital support); I then work on it with Gimp (rarely Photoshop). And eventually in the end I integrate photographic elements to it in a collage phase; I finish with the re-painting of these elements… these phases are repeated as I dive into the picture.
I can also start directly with a photo shoot, in order to rediscover the pleasures of raw framing and light play.
Another type of work, which I practice more often for portraits, is to work from photographs that the model has taken for me. I like playing with images that do not belong to me and reappropriate them. In such works, the model often sends me twenty pictures, with which I am able to compose an image.
That’s it… sometimes I know what I want to get, sometimes I don’t. I like a picture when I can see my reflection in it. And I like to discover it gradually, as I create it.
What else? …
There is a large amount of feminine representations in my work. There was a time I blamed myself for it. I was obsessed with the fact that I should certainly not “add something to the objectifying representation of women in this fucking patriarchal society we live in”.
I denied that I have this fascination for the robotic sensuality that lies in flesh. My work speaks of what fascinates me and I simply refuse to be morally judgmental. This topic is a bit complicated I must say … this is a relationship issue between my intellectual demands and my unconscious desires.
Otherwise, I have this fascination for Dark Science Fiction. I think that this is not news to anyone. I love these worlds because they are reflections of ours, symbolically and often very accurately. I bypass reality in order to tell about it. To push its defects to their peak. Retrocity is the symbol of our future in everything shabby that it promises us. And despite everything, I still see some poetry in it. As if Beauty was even brighter amidst darkness and rust. Paradoxes and fatalism.
This idea is reflected in the very principle of my work: retrieve photographic images of our reality, and then make them fall into my own images.
It’s funny, I’m not sure I’m even the best person to talk about all this… I think images are enough.
It is quite possible that I change my mind tomorrow and write this whole text over,
Or add some more to it… or even write one that isn’t misspelled…
For now I think I’ll just smoke a cigarette.
B.