Rodrigues artist Jacques Désiré Wong So, alias Meng, presents the exhibition Spleensparrowfrom November 20 to December 20, at the Caudan Arts Centre… Following on from his series “Identité minérale : mémoire résiduelle”, he continues his introspective work into the geological soul of Rodrigues, with these twenty acrylics on canvas, as many abstract visual poems. Dominique Bellier
Meng tells of the rage for life, the thirst for beauty and the quest for the ideal that underlie spleen, rather than the metaphysical anguish and melancholy that are at first associated with it. These twenty compositions have the energy and lightness of a sparrow, transcending Baudelaire’s malaise.
Before arriving at these imaginary compositions, Meng immersed himself in the island’s landscapes to draw sketches, to perceive the flows of lava that preceded its formation, the work of wind and tides, rain and sun that shaped its reliefs. He questions basalt and coral. Then, the simplification of forms leads him to their essence. Colors can then sing this symphony of the earth.
No perspective here: we rise into space to discover the landscape, born of a long meditation and a fascination for the bowels of the Earthand their transformations in a time scale that eludes human beings. Symbolizing depth and infinity, blue dominates. He also uses it for his land art, in which he balances stones. It contrasts with yellow, the energy and transformative power of the sun… The fluidity and movement of these jets of color, which are also formed with the complicity of gravity, communicate the age-old joy of creation, with its peaks and plains, its abyssal landscapes, the fruit of the movements of matter.
