The last time it was stark black-and-white charcoal. This time, he has added colour. Otherwise, Julien Segard’s Dark Was The Night is not much different from his earlier exhibition held at the same venue in 2021. Segard tried to stretch ideas borrowed from the 2021 exhibition without being innovative enough in any significant manner. The exhibition under review was held at Experimenter, Hindustan Road, from September 29 to November 11. Segard, a French artist, was born in 1980 in Marseille. He lives and works in Goa.

It is easy to wax poetic about the “vast infinite spaces” and the “hazy apocalyptic backdrop” in Segard’s work, to quote the press handout, but unless these find eloquent expression in the artist’s oeuvre, such words ring hollow. The noteworthy virtue of Segard’s work is that he has been able to retain his simplicity, although that didn’t need much effort since little change is noticeable. The drawings on giant pieces of dyed cotton fabric or canvas are standardised representations in comics of violent cosmic explosions, meteor showers, shooting stars and comets and other varieties
of celestial fireworks blown up several times over to intensify their dramatic impact. The effect becomes even more startling as blue-green, crimson or white splashes are in stark contrast to the dark backdrop. A cluster of white strands with blobs at their end resembling some astral broomstick is a rather remarkable work. But there the resemblance with celestial phenomena ends.

Hanging a few inches beneath the ceiling and stretching right down to the floor, or stretching across walls, these pieces of fabric or canvas do catch the viewer’s attention like any other striking, non-figurative work would. Technically, they must have been difficult to execute. After all, these are not mere splashes of colour as the application is multi-layered with several gradations of the same shade. Herein lies Segard’s artistry. However, to read deeper meanings in these would be to exaggerate the visual effect of technically complex work.