“Le Roi des Oiseaux” by Michel Lauricella and Jean-Dominique Ferrucci in Paris, France

Recently, some very interesting and similar style paste-ups have appeared on the streets of Paris… Turns out, these have been put up by two friends who share common artistic territories and the series are called “Le Collectif Aorte” by Michel Lauricella and Jean-Dominique Ferrucci. Michael is a drawer, sculptor, teacher of morphology drawings and book author. Jean-Dominique is a director, photographer and a visual artist.

“Le roi des oiseaux” (the king of the birds) paste-ups went up on Rue Toussaint Féron street in Paris and here’s a short description from Jean-Dominique on how this work came together…

The idea was to make a common work, and because we love Street Art, we decided to invest Street Art with a mix of our works… and we had a lot to learn on how to share and work together. Collective works are not so easy, and we had to find our own way. We respect each others work greatly. Maybe a bit too much at the beginning, so it was difficult to create a strong work without considering that each work was on a bigger work’s service. Now, it’s easier. And our common work is signed under “Le Collectif Aorte”.

It’s possible because we have some common deep streams, we talk about the books we read, the films we see, the doubts we have in art practice, the emotions we feel in life and how it influences our work…

We are interested and sensitive to the way people are treated in general, to migrants, to the bodies, to the differences… and without being religious, we are very touched by the sacred. And the question of the death is very present in our works. I am very moved by the animals and the relationship with them…

For this work, I think we wanted to make a proposition that can be interpreted in different ways, that was not too directive, without guiding too much the interpretations. And we had several discussions with people in the streets about the pictures, and it was very interesting to see that they had other ideas, feelings, interpretations… The street is the best, the most lively gallery! I think, what we like is that these images are just jumping in people’s faces and lives, we love the poetry that appears in life!

So we wanted to work with Michel’s portraits and the pictures I took of animals, dead or alive. And to mix them… Michel is drawing all the time. He draws nature, people, bodies, movement. He often draws models that are very special.. Sometimes, we feel they could be homeless, or survivors… of a terrible thing… that’s just life. And I make some boxes, reliquaries with dead birds, that I found in voodoo markets in Africa, or dead in landscapes, and now friends bring me some when they find some (already dead, of course) so I can photograph them.

The birds of this series were found dead in the nature and I photographed them. The dog with the drawing of the old lady, I photographed him during the night in India. He was a stray dog. A bit like the men Michel often draws… they look like stray men.

So we scan Michel’s drawings, portraits and we try to add them an animal. We are looking for a very graphic image, with a strong solemnity but also with tenderness. We try to make a composition that tells something about the relationship between people and an animal…

So we move, we adjust the images with photoshop, we try, until we find a certain emotion, until we imagine a story…

There’s this man with this bird in his arms, like a pieta. There’s this same man in the wing (arm?) of this white bird in the sky. He is a kind of a Christ (we like the figure of the Christ). And there’s this old lady with the lost dog… you just have to look at old ladies in the street when they have a dog to imagine the strength of their relationship, to imagine the emptiness in their lives when the dog dies…

At this time, we don’t ask any authorisation, we just do it. We try not to be too decorative. But emotional! We try to have a message, but without being too prescriptive, and to offer many signs of interpretation… we try this.

Check out all of the works below and stay tuned for more updates from “Le Collectif Aorte” works in Paris soon!