The River is a drawing about evolution. It is said that the people who prevent us from evolving the most are the people who are closest to us: they would send us an unchanging image of ourselves. The title is taken from a quote by Buddha about our tendency to have a fixed image of people, to stick labels on them that are difficult to get rid of. So he explained that a river is permanently shaped by the fauna and flora that inhabit it, those outside that drink its water, the human being who may divert it or navigate on it, the rain that mixes with it... And yet it is always the same river and that the human being is like it, an entity in constant evolution with each passing second. For the artist, the river is also the expression of his own search for balance during his evolution. It is a questioning around serenity, idleness, security, risk taking. The crocodiles turn around the character in a clockwise direction, symbolizing the death that is lurking and inexorably catching up with us. But beyond the simple passage of time, the danger sometimes comes from within, like an amphibian peacefully resting on a man's shoulder, carrying a toxin capable of killing him. The River is one of the nine drawings that make up the series 6VILISATION, a series whose common thread is the sixth mass extinction (Holocene) on which the artist bases his reflections on existence, whether it be his own or that of our species. The animals represented here belong to the reptile and amphibian groups.
The drawing is made with a black technical felt pen on a 160g/m² white paper which darkens somewhat with time and light, thus recalling its vegetal origin.
