Suburban Abstraction

Suburban Abstraction

Pastel chevrons divide sparse, sun-bleached compositions in self-taught photographer Matthieu Venot’s (b. 1979) architectural vistas. Venot searches for novelty in his compositions, as a celebration of the joy to be found in the quotidian. Architectural details are cropped out of context in dynamic close-up, delivering an abstracted vision of residential neighbourhoods in his native France. Elsewhere, buildings soar into an expanse of sky as flat and clean as the graphic lines and geometric patterns that inhabit his work. The ascetic background is employed as a foil to the vibrant articulation of the buildings, and the sunny optimism of Venot’s sherbet colour palette. This realisation of possibility and freedom both transcends and is to be found in the facets of daily life – a veritable utopia of the commonplace. His work has been exhibited at the Galerie d’Art, Paris, and at Les Établis, in the photographer’s home town of Brest. www.matthieuvenot.fr.