Godon in his mega-york
- Dated: October 2006
- Media: Journal Femina
Godon in his mega-york
A faux naïve painter, with his roots in graffiti and comic strip art and chalk pavements drawings in Paris and Brighton, Alain Godon spends his time between Le Touquet and London. The artist, who refuses to grow old, is exhibiting his vision of Manhattan in Lille. […]
Because derision is his stock in trade: “It’s maddening how surprising the man can be — capable of great as well as bad”. He appears to observe life in this spirit, without a trace of causticity but with a terrifically acerbic sense of humour. […] He also describes himself as naïve, an admirer of the great Jean-Paul Basquiat, the spiritual disciple of Rousseau, Le Douanier. It’s clearly true that inspiration does not emerge from a void, but the vision of life, as he portrays it, is marked by a language that is uniquely his alone; a sense of dialogue, an order of colours and an urgency that signal a still nascent style. A style but also a method. […] All that he sees, registers and then interprets has a (real or false) naivety, which, one rather suspects, takes a compassionate slant on this slightly crazy world.