Goulven Derrien

I grew up in Le Moustoir, a small village in western France. The isolation I experienced there shaped both my fascination with, and my critical distance from, my environment: observing landscapes beyond romantic comfort and questioning the human psyche. These explorations of the immediate, as well as a broader inquiry into the layers of physical, social, and mental existence, nurtured my interest in the study of geography. After completing a master’s degree, my search for understanding led me to work in various settings, notably psychiatric hospitals and alternative educational structures for juvenile offenders.

It was during these professional experiences that I began a drawing practice, alongside studies in musique concrète at the Conservatory of Angoulême. My work combines a reflection on the epistemology of isolation and solitude with a self-taught practice of drawing, painting, and experimental music.

These experiences have reinforced my interest in alterations of perception, borderline states of consciousness, and hallucinatory phenomena. The situations of suffering, violence, and isolation I encountered triggered a visceral and imperative search for an “outside.”

At the same time, my visual sensibility was shaped by influences drawn from popular culture, including illustrated encyclopedias from the 1980s, the 'Guinness Book of World Records', Japanese anime, comics, and record sleeves, notably those of Sonic Youth. The coexistence of heterogeneous images on the same visual plane, sometimes originating from very different contexts, enriched a visual grammar that I have since synthesized in my work.

In my music, fragments accumulate in layers; soundscapes interpenetrate, creating a play of associations that, as in my drawings, allows for the embodiment of notions of tension, flow, and atmosphere.

My works reveal strange and hypnotic worlds, traversed by horror and wonder, sometimes tinged with humor. I explore a dialogue between utopian and dystopian spaces that attempt to communicate but rarely succeed.