wunderkammer /34 Agenda visits brussels artists’ studios
Éric Lambé
Photo: Heleen Rodiers
EN ❙ “I am happy finally to have my own table, just like Magritte,” At his studio, Éric Lambé approaches that world very tangibly: comic book creator Éric Lambé (1966) laughs when we visit him at “Working on a book is a process; it is an expanding universe. The his studio near the Elisabeth Park in Jette. Six months ago, Lambé image you create is always contextualised within the preceding moved into the ground floor of a terraced house, installing his and the following image. It is located in the centre of a whole. studio in the basement – delving into the depths! After years of When a painter is standing in front of a canvas, the left side is still practical improvisation: “Back then, Fréon – along with Amok, the there when he adds something to the right side. That canvas is precursor to FRÉMOK – had contacts in Brussels with an associathe book, the left and right sides are the pages. As far as I am contion called Moving Arts Studio, who offered to maintain uninhabcerned, I am making one painting, and I have to be able to see the ited buildings and pay the property tax in exchange for rent. If the whole. That is why I spread the pages out on the floor like a kind owner wanted to sell the building, however, we had to move. After of cartography.” Even keeping this blueprint in mind, the journey studio hopping all over Brussels for a while, I decided to install a through The King’s Son makes for very fantastical but rewarding drawing table in my own dining room. I worked at it for about eight reading. As a reader you surrender into free-fall, you lose yourself years. The complete The King’s Son was made there.” in the abyss. The King’s Son is an almost incomparable experiment In The King’s Son, a hypnotising, fantastical, brutal, and poetic in autobiographical graphic narration. The sweltering, congealed graphic story, illustrated in layered blue and black pen lines, Éric world keeps intact the complexity of the emotional core of the Lambé finds a way to create a narrative using other tools than book. “All those conflicting feelings are all the things you feel text, dialogues, or a plot. It is a fascinating world that the reader and experience, resulting in a book that is a world unto itself. best explores with the recommended “useful accessories for The authors of current autobiographical comics often expose reading”: swimming goggles and flippers. For those willing to risk themselves. I see no need to do that. The core emotions are very themselves on their journey to the fathomless depths of the soul. intimate. I extract their essence and don’t provide further clarifica“At FRÉMOK, we cherish the idea that readers are not idiots; that tion. That allows me to create powerful, appealing images. During they are people capable of finding their way through a project, an interview on Radio Grandpapier, they asked me to choose a and making their own story of it. Naturally, song, which I was unable to do. But my borough: Jette many things go through my head during son is currently in a Bob Dylan phase and books: The King's Son (2012); Joue avec moi (2011); the creative process. I try to construct a he chose ‘Ballad of a Thin Man’, in which Un Voyage (2008); La Pluie (2005); Alberto G (2003); Ophélie et les directeurs des ressources humaines narrative; I try to create a universe. There Dylan sings: ‘Because something is hap(2001); Les jours ouvrables (1997) is a first page and a last page... and I guide pening here, but you don’t know what it INFO: www.fremok.org the read along that outlined path. After is.’ It’s pure coincidence, but it matches More on agendamagazine.be that, it is up to them to explore that world.” the book perfectly!” kurt snoekx
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