Ryan Matthew Cohn and Jean Labourdette explore Wunderkammer in “Mors Et Anima”

It is clear that your work is affected by the concept of Wunderkammer- Capitalization. Can you speak to what raised your interest in the beginning of this topic and how does it affect your work?

Rayyan: I got a great attractiveness for Wunderkammer, because I was very young. I grew up surrounded by the nature, which ended up collecting and then using early arts works. As a teenager, my interest in antiques began to flourish. These effects ended until they became my main passion, and eventually grew to the artistic works that I make today. I also collect the subjects related to the topic greatly.

My group ended, and I became a synonym for the topic. My home has become somewhat a lifetime masterpiece of Wunderkammer creatures. Each piece works with each other to form a coherent group.

Jan: Like Ryan, I was collecting all kinds of things as a child … rocks, strange sticks, dead bats, anything that is more curious and wonder my hair. One of my favorite places as a child was the Museum of Natural History in Paris … I grew up going to the market used at the end of each week with my father, which ended until it was a specific factor in my life. I knew all the merchants, it was a lot of fun … I even bought Kanglin (Human Tibetan trumpet) at the age of six!

I also had the magic of the side carnival, which we still in Paris at the time in La Foire du trône … I will be surprised by looking at Fiji Al -Bahr, the second main, a woman who is cut off, or the smallest alive man! In fact, often more than the promise of this anomalies, which were photographed on amazing painted signs in bright colors, more than disappointing reality behind the curtains. For me, Wunderkammers and Sidshows is a poem for human imagination.

At the age of twelve, I also entered into the scene of writing on the emerging walls in Paris (from where) and I will collect things in the abandoned buildings, the better, I was dealing with them later, and allow myself to inspire from the Zanjar, their caries, their soul and their indescribable stories waiting for their guidance.

These magics eventually merged together and developed from early 2000 to a modest group of anomalies and strange things that I use as an inspiration for my paintings, as well as the use of antiques and things that I have found in my work.

Your work is also either skirts or explicit references to Macabre. Without getting away from anger, it also treats great beauty in the concept of death and renewal. Can you talk to this idea a little?

Rayyan: It seems that some of my first memories relate to death in one way or another. Whether the pieces they collect or the books that have been attracted, they tend to deal with death, anatomy, or MOMENTO MORI. When I started making trips to Europe, I will visit some ancient cathedrals and places of worship. I would like to face the deceased saints. These defects will keep the actual bones of the saints, and in some cases actual skulls, although they were convincing with beautiful icons and jewelry of souvenirs. It was one of my dearest memories when I visited Notradam before it was finally burned, and I was closely attempted to the sculptures that decorate the walls. Many of them were incredibly ugly. However, I noticed tourists, who give up the wonderful beauty that surrounded them, may not notice the horrific images of people whose heads are beheaded or tortured.

It seems that some of my first memories relate to death in one way or another. Ryan Matthew Cohen

Jan: As I mentioned, during the years of writing on the walls, I spent a lot of time to explore the abandoned urban areas of all kinds, from the banned pillar basements banned to abandoned homes or factories. I was truly inspired by the dissolution and the “ghosts” granted inside these spaces and will create art on the site based on these perceptions of each space …

Although I am not a religious person, I developed a magic of religious art and churches when I was about 20 years old. I was living in Paris at the time, I had a great access to this type of things, and it is everywhere. This affected my work a lot.

For me, it is all about the existence of “second Degré”, a sense of humor about everything. There is no light without darkness, and vice versa. There is no life without death. I love the idea of ​​dealing with these basic concepts with a grain of salt, almost somehow mocks the existential awe in the human state. Draw the tragic defects of human existence, with all its compassionate but wonderful glory. I wonder about the idea of ​​death as an irreversible state of nothingness. I am looking for a glimmer of the soul.

I see that my art is a serious attempt to touch the “sacred” puzzle of life, but it is completely unable and icons at the same time.