Aesthetically pleasing as it is amorous, Rappeneau is the disarming digital artist, documenting the youth of today in all our imperfect glory. We are transported into his hyper sexual, hyper surreal world, as he provocatively captures the female form. Inhabiting a distinctly nostalgic quality, his world of colour and fusion is possessed by the reckless, perverse, and striking undercurrent of the subject matter he details.
From wild nights out, to bathroom mirror epiphanies, it seems Rappeneau has a penchant for capturing the outsiders of society. From non-conformists, teenagers, to party goers alike, he pulls you into the crazy, lonely, rabid, sometimes hopeful, sometimes woeful world of adolescence and early adulthood.
Something akin to the heroin chic of the digital age, we are immersed into a world of hedonistic youth as they smoke, pop pills, and share bedrooms and taxis alike. We are flies on a wall to, what feels like an intimate snapshot of someone’s life. Consequently, his work has both a documentary and voyeuristic aura to it, that is compelling.
We are invited to witness people finding revelations on stairways, dozing off in taxis, doing their make-up in dirty public bathroom mirrors, laying with their lovers, – their private moments, made for public consumption. It feels almost intrusive, as we witness these moments of quiet intimacy and revelation, yet we can’t look away.
And because of this decorous subject matter, his work feels pre Internet, pre Instagram, pre hyper-connectivity. It’s mysterious, wild, and above all seductive. He conjures an otherworldly atmosphere, something nostalgic for the 1990’s – and invites us all to live our life in reckless, optimistic, exciting abandon.
We are ushered to be real and raw. To be vulnerable. To be touched by everyone we meet along the way. And it is for these reasons, his work is so powerful.
