Hello, my name is Arnaud Pepin-Donat, I’m a french guy who grew up in the suburbs of Paris. After studying japanese and french as a foreign language, i went to Tokyo for 5 years, came back to Paris for 5 years, and now living at a video game oriented digital art residence in Sweden.
I’m working now on a crazy surreaslistic novel about the building of an Utopia, and a WTF narrative driven adventure video game set in a broken world.
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The “Photo α” serie’s pictures were taken on a trip between France and Japan in 2006 as a backpacker (without taking a plane).
They were shot with a very cheap Pentax Espio 928, printed as big as possible, edited by hand, then scanned again. I used photoshop as a noob just to edit the contrast, the colors, and mostly the dark parts that I wanted to be super black. Finally I printed them again, put them in canvas, and made my first exhibition.
The “Collage” serie followed, I didn’t do a lot, but I kinda miss it. They were done between 2008 and 2012.
The “Japanese pocket” picture is basically what I had in my backpack when i did my trip and reached Osaka. I like the idea, and now, thinking of doing more of these.
“Freedom is Wisdom” was a tribute to Nelson Mandela before he died. This picture was a part of a group exhibition, and represents who for me (at that time) were the most influancials philosophers who thought about the concepts of freedom and wisdom.
“Venus unloved Sadness” is the illustration of what my tiny heart felt when, for the fist time in my life, a girl that I loved didn’t loved me anymore (ahah, nothing very serious, and i’m very good now!)
“Drawing” serie. Everything was drew by hand with a Staedler 0.05, scanned, cleaned, and colorized on photoshop. I have made also a collaboration with Rei Inaba, using some of her drawings (thank you Rei!).
A big giant drawing is under development now (i will show you some pics soonish)
In “Literature“, you will find my firsts surrealistics poems. After drawing lines, i just wanted to draw words. Because i worked on the same time on my novel, I wanted them to be absolutly meaningless, uncorrect, and fun. These are automatic writings, and are meant to do not be taken seriously. But ! to my great surprise, i found some unexcepeted deepness in them.
The novel itself is very surrealistic. We follow a lazy and naive dude thinking being in a dream surrounded by funny people, stucked on an island, and on the way to build an Utopia. The first part is written now, and i’m working on it, thinking about it everyday.
The “Music” part could be considered as a kind of collage too. It’s mostly TripHop that i made using (legit?) samples that i found here and there. I do play the piano though.
If we try to find a story in the playlist “Summer Madness”, lets say that it’s about the building of an Utopia, and its fall into Dystopia. But i try to do not think about it too much. I’m trying to find now the name of the people who made the samples I took from internet. Especially the rappers. Bigup to you if you recognized you.
“Photo β” is the most recent serie of picture that i have taken with a better (and expensive) Canon camera between France, UK, and US. No photoshop on those, but, a little bit of lightroom to clean them all.
Finally “3D“. Here are screenshots taken from “DMGP Observatory”, a 3D art gallery curated by Geraline Postel and David Magnin. You can have more infos here : www.dmgpobservatory.com. It was my first attempt to build a 3D World which led me to my new project “AlphaDay”, a crazy video game, on which I’m working almost everyday here in Sweden.
I would like to apologized, please pardon my faulty english, and sorry for all non-english speaker, i’m supposed to translate this ASAP 😉
BigUp to Delicatessen Galerie, Pachika Mura, Alliance Francaise de Sapporo, Alliance Française de Jersey, Amp Galery, Amp Cafe, Hatch, Xion Tokyo, Mannerheim Galery, Spelkollektivet, the French Government, my friends, my family, and those that i don’t recall now, but who are in my heart forever ! (awww)
And of course, Thank You ! (yes, you!) feel free to send me a mail here : arnaud@jimusho.co, or reach me on social media,
I will be glad to send you print, answer questions, collaborate with you, or even just have a coffee together.
Again, thank you,
Have a great day !
Arnaud
