Philippe Cognee:The poetry of blur. Visit to Paul Valéry Museum in Sete, France

🖌️ Philippe Cognée (born in 1957 near Nantes, France) spent part of his childhood in Benin, before returning to France in 1974 to study art.

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Labyrinth

The artist graduated from the École des Beaux-Arts in Nantes. Later,he  became a resident at the Villa Medici in Rome in 1990 — a turning point in his career.

That’s where he developed his unique, technique: painting with encaustic (pigmented beeswax) and then melting the surface with heat — often using an ordinary iron.

The Crowd

His process is as poetic as it is physical:

1. He starts from a photographic or video image, transferring it to canvas or wood.

2. He paints it with colored wax, layer by layer.

3. He covers it with a sheet of plastic and applies heat, allowing the wax to melt and distort.

4. When the film is removed, the image appears blurred, liquefied, sometimes cracked — as if memory itself had softened.

Through this transformation, Cognée explores the tension between what is seen and what disappears. Everyday subjects — houses, highways, crowds, supermarket aisles, even animal carcasses — dissolve into something luminous.

Theater

Tokyo From The Sky (Crushed Charcoal and Wax)

Today, the artist lives and works near Nantes. His paintings have been shown in major venues including the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris, the Fondation Cartier.

Sete's famous marine cemetery, across from the Museum

The museum's garden