*This title is on presale. Ships Feb 2024.
Clothbound hardcover
Maroon cloth with orange foil stamping
8 1/2 in. x 11 in. | 21.59 cm. x 27.94 cm.
LED UV print on white uncoated paper, 120 pages
English and French
Embark on a mesmerizing journey into surreal and transcendent realms with Sébastien Léon’s Psychodessins. Published in a captivating Franco-English format, this book invites you on a visual odyssey through the depths of the subconscious and the very act of artistic creation.
Léon, a daring visionary and polymath extraordinaire, beckons you into a world where chaos and order perform an intricate dance, and logic gracefully yields to disruption. Psychodessins unveils a hypnotic ensemble of 67 figurative watercolor drawings, each born from the serendipitous convergence of watercolor puddles, offering a glimpse into the profound recesses of the artist’s psyche.
The foreword, a captivating composition by the eminent artist and researcher Graham Burnett, delves into the very nature of attention itself. Burnett’s eloquent words set the stage for a riveting encounter with Léon’s creations, prompting profound contemplation on the essence of perception and interpretation.
Following Burnett’s thought-provoking prelude, Psychodessins treats the viewer to an enthralling conversation between Léon and the enigmatic New York poet and divination anthropologist, Enrique Enriquez. This dialogue plunges into the unique artistic process, drawing intriguing connections to Surrealism, ancient divination practices, and the mystical Language of the Birds, unveiling the profound interplay between the act of creation and the unfolding tapestry of reality.
In partnership with Galerie Praz Delavallade, this book will serve as your exclusive guide to the Psychodessins exhibition at the illustrious Praz Delavallade Gallery in Los Angeles in January 2024. In this sense, Psychodessins will be your passport to an unparalleled artistic encounter, immersing you in a world where boundaries blur between the conscious and the subconscious.
With Psychodessins, Sébastien Léon challenges you to shed preconceptions, surrender to the intricate choreography of spontaneity and order, and bask in the hypnotic allure of the subconscious mind. This book is a jubilant celebration of art’s extraordinary power to transcend intuition, awaken the depths of your psyche, and liberate you from the shackles of rational thought.
Prepare to be captivated, provoked, and transported beyond the ordinary. Psychodessins is not merely a book; it serves as a portal to an extraordinary, otherworldly experience that will undoubtedly leave you spellbound.
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Artist's statement
“My creative vision arises from an ongoing dialogue between opposing forces: geometry and disruption, logic and chaos. This tension results in works that embrace the unexpected and the imperfect. With any medium, I seek to tame the glitches that I introduce in my algorithms, disrupting the predictable while containing unforeseen possibilities.
Through the interplay between order and spontaneity, I ultimately intend to hypnotize, and give shape to the subconscious.”
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Sébastien Léon is a French, Los Angeles-based artist, designer, musician, and creative director. Initially trained as a marketing executive in Milan, Madrid, and New York, Léon created his pioneering curatorial practice in 2003. Inhabiting the intersection of culture and commerce, he orchestrated global artistic platforms for brands such as Diesel, Coca-Cola, and Starbucks, involving eclectic artists such as Banksy, Jaime Hayon, and Jim Carroll, and institutions including the Whitney Museum, the Palais de Tokyo, and the Dallas Symphony Orchestra.
After 10 years of working with luminary collaborators, Léon’s practice evolved into a multidisciplinary artistic atelier. Inspired by the model of the Italian Renaissance studio, Léon blurs the lines between fine art and design through his commissions: a monumental sonic sculpture for a high-rise building in Istanbul, a geodesic dome with immersive multichannel music for Audi in China, video art and paintings for Samsung televisions, a temporary restaurant for Krug Champagne and Alain Ducasse in Paris, bespoke glass sculptures, and award-winning furniture designs. In addition, Léon keeps a daily routine of drawings called Psychodessins.
Sébastien Léon is the author of Remastered (Gestalten), a book inviting 55 artists to reinterpret the Masters of Western painting, and the composer/writer of solo record Jeux d’Artifices produced by James Truman. His profile has been published in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, IdN, Surface Magazine, ID, Corriere della Sera (Italy), and NHK (Japan). He is a 2019 FGI Rising Star Award recipient.
Léon received an MBA from SDA Bocconi in Milan.
