MARC SÉGUIN
Marc Séguin’s series of “Wanted Terrorists,” represents a mirror into the fragility of our varied worldly perspectives. We are confronted with paintings in which the faces are clearly foreign but also infamous. Faces that are the embodiment of what threatens our democratic principles. Based on demonized, cropped photographs as they are posted on the FBI most wanted terrorists list, these sun-scorched, bearded, Middle Eastern cave dwellers have captured the hearts and minds of Westerners as the epitome of what is to be feared.
In Séguin’s paintings, this evil vision is interrupted by a clear, almost beheaded, separation between the face and the body. A series of colorful gowns and summer dresses, varied in their intricate loveliness, propose an immediate contrast to the grayish, coal brown impression of the FBI terrorist mug shots. The emotions associated with terrorist faces clash with these associated with a seductively colorful gown or dress. It is however a clash in unity as the heads of Islamic terrorists and the pretty clothes are represented in the form of one body.
The work can be interpreted in many ways. Is it an attack against the repressive qualities of fundamentalism? Is it a feminist or homosexual critique? Is it a promotion of secular values? Is it a satirical impossibility? Like the choice of colors and variations in the dresses relay the envelopment of vibrant individuality–a cacophony of wondrous free thought–the chosen opposite is in unity with something representing the most common generalization in our world today, the most blatant western misrepresentation. As in his paintings, Séguin proves to be a master in conveying what is disturbing to a great number of people in a peaceful, minimalist way, forcing one to contemplate.
Marc Séguin was born in Ottawa on March 20, 1970. He obtained his Bachelor of Fine Arts at Concordia University and now splits his time between his home in Montréal, Québec and his Brooklyn, New York studio. Touching on themes of the politically backwards, the environmentally compromised and the socially divided, his work reveals deeper truths about the nature of humanity through images that are not only thought provoking, but beautifully elegiac.