Benoît Platéus
Unconcerned Coin, 2019
Oil on paper on wood panel
10 x 8 inches (25.4 x 20.32 cm)
$ 2,200

In this new series of paintings Scissors, hangers and other batteries, Platéus continues his process of "frottage," in which he takes objects found in the streets of New York or his studio in Brussels and rubs them onto paper, glues the paper onto wood and lastly applies paint. The objects that catch his attention have already undergone some transformative event — discarded and bent hangers lying on a curb, coins melded into newly-laid tar in the street, a barely recognizable crushed can.

Beyond the materiality of elements, there is a further link between object and emotion. Platéus imbues the objects with emotion, naming them with emotive descriptions – ‘proud’, ‘greedy’ and ‘stoic’. In doing so he gives the objects personhood while preserving their objecthood – attributing emotions usually reserved for people. In ascribing these objects with emotive states based on their surroundings, Platéus legitimizes their experiences. What is a described experience if not a story? The frottages are stories – of the travels of an object carelessly discarded and carefully preserved yet transformed.

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