This exhibition is a tribute of 5 established digital artists (Griff, Pascal Blanché, Polygon1993, Mauricio Pommella and Reza Afshar) to Philippe Druillet’s sci-fi trilogy Salammbô, a timeless story about battles, treachery, feasts and obsessive passion. Originally a novel written by Gustave Flaubert in the mid-19th century, the storyline of Salammbô is set in Carthage after the first Punic War. Flaubert’s novel is a floridtale of exotism, rendered in supreme detail and masterful evocation. The mercenaries employed by Carthage for the first Punic War, rise up against their employers, as they constantly defer payment of their wages. Two barbarian clan chiefs, Mathô and Narr'Havas, both fall in love with the beautiful and ethereal Salammbô, daughter of Hamilcar, the suffet of Carthage. What follows is a bloody conflict, a war that has more to do with pride, passion and desire than with politics.
In search of something monumental, this novel, with its powerful reservoir of images offered Philippe the possibility to push to the limits his creative talent.
He transposed the Punic Wars to the World of the Star and projected the storyline into the future, replacing Matho, Flaubert’s chief of the Barbarian soldiers, by his talisman-character, Lone Sloane.
Sloane’s passion and desire for Salammbo is absolutely unbridled. Flaubert's sober yet lush language is transcended by the incredible pages of Druillet, who has reached the maturity of his talent, exploding frames and freeing himself from all the conventions of comics. It took Philippe seven years to finish this trilogy.
For the production of the third chapter of Salammbo Philippe experimented a new method for creating images, involving a composite technique combining electronic and analog image processing, resulting in very high resolution effects and textures, brilliance and saturation of color. This technology is largely out of date today, but in 1986, it was the first attempt to integrate computer-generated imagery into comic books !!!
"Salammbo is a return to the ancestral nature of women, she’s a totem-woman. I felt that I needed to draw all her portraits as paintings first, before incorporating them into the comic strip."
Philippe tried to push the boudaries of comics by using cutting edge techniques in blending photography and high resolution printing.
This exhibition is a tribute to the timelessness of this story and to the influence that Philippe's trilogy has had on a new generation of visual artists. The artworks will be revealed on Monday 1st of July , 2024. The sale will start on the same day at 6PM CET.
Welcome to Philippe Druillet's world.
Philippe’s world combines science fiction, fantasy, and mythology, creating visually striking compositions that challenge conventional notions of reality.
His epic and monumental scenes, featuring vast cityscapes, towering structures, and sprawling landscapes that convey a sense of scale and grandiosity, also incorporate psychedelic elements such as swirling patterns, kaleidoscopic colors, and surreal distortitions.
His compositions endure as mesmerizing and mind-bending visuals that evoke altered states of consciousness.
Philippe is recognized for his significant contributions to comics, particularly in the realm of graphic storytelling and sequential art. His iconic series, such as "Lone Sloane" and "The Night" have influenced generations of artists and writers with their innovative narrative structures and avant-garde aesthetics.
The baroque aesthetic of his illustrations, with ornate designs, elaborate patterns, and a rich color palette, evoke a sense of grandeur and opulence.
George Lucas, George Miller, Ridley Scott or Denis Villeneuve are among the movie directors influenced by Philippe, partly because of his cinematic approach, using dynamic angles, dramatic lighting, and cinematic framing techniques to imbue his illustrations with a sense of movement and narrative tension.