Simon Doucet

INTRODUCTION

Simon Doucet was born in France in 1968 and studied sculpture in his childhood at the Atelier Potager du Dauphin, in Meudon, near Paris. For several years, he worked from time to time for the «Fondation Jean Arp» helping the curator, a family friend, to welcome visitors. After an international career in finance, as a manager and teacher, he renewed with his sculpting roots at the Atelier Terre et Feux in Lille (France) before joining the Art Students League in New York in 2009, working as the student of Jonathan Shahn, Antony Antonios, Leonid Brener.
Simon is influenced by French philosophers such as Derrida or Foucault. He handpicks in the deconstructivism hints to question main stream art and adds touches of singularity in his work. Queer movement and intellectuals such as scholar and artist Kosovsky helps him in questioning weirdness in social and art issues.  
Some figurative sculptures, made through a process using clay then direct plaster and aluminium mesh  panels, question the role of garment as both a protective outfit from the external world and a sensitive caress for the mind, destined to help the true self burst out from its chrysalis. In the torso series, the shape evolves, becoming increasingly elusive. The missing head questions the centrality of the flesh, strained between solace and desire.

Similarities can be found between Simon Doucet’s sculptures and that of masters such as Moore, and especially Arp for his human based stylized body. The use of curved formal shapes also brings to mind artists such as Nogushi or Serra. Influenced by the architect Gerry and the fashion artist Alexander McQueen, the artist attaches particular importance to incorporating extravaganza to art pieces defined in fluid shapes.