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The drawings of Henri Michaux resemble writing in their form, animated by a simmering precision, and make the white page a vital space with a fleeting action. The ink spots unfurl in lively commas, repeated without any notion of considered composition or hierarchy coming into play.
Henri Michaux (1899-1984)
Henri Michaux was a poet and painter who did not stop stretching the limits of writing, using drawing among others to seek to “decondition” himself from the grasp of verbal language. His research aiming to free himself of any control of reason led him to carry out several experiences under the effect of hallucinogens between 1956 and the end of the 1960s. “I wanted to draw the conscience of existing and time passing”, he explained about the drawings he did under the effects of mescalin. This psychological freeing gave rise to artistic experiences that could be deemed automatic calligraphies, involving the artist’s complete participation, whose hand operated the seismographic transcription of his feelings and visions.
