Marcher, cueillir, jardiner, teindre

Benjamin Huynh’s work explores how contemporary figurative painting is embedded within ecological, social and identity-based narratives. They question traditional definitions of the medium by approaching it as “transitive” or “expanded”, in other words, relational.

For Art Au Centre, they pursue this research by working with ancestral methods of color-making. Through techniques involving painting and natural dyeing, in particular mordant painting and pigment extraction, they explore resilient plants associated with queer imaginaries, capable of reclaiming cities and wastelands. These plants become co-authors of a narrative of re-enchantment, far beyond the nature of a simple motif.

During their picking walks, they consider the act of harvesting as a methodology of observing: a choreography of attention in which grasses reveal stories of resistance. Painting thus becomes a living ecology, an invitation to perceive and reimagine the spaces we inhabit.

The work is here carried along by the unpredictability of the materials and the processes followed. The reaction between mordants and tannins always remains partially uncontrollable: each plant, each season, each bath creates a singular variation. The artworks continue to evolve over time, marked by light, humidity and their environment. The installation itself draws on motifs inspired by other windows in Liège.

With the support of a research grant from the French Community of Belgium (Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles).