Tony Regazzoni presented his latest work after a recent residency in Lindre-Basse: a series of eclipses; a motif which has been common throughout several of his recent works. What particularly interests him about the principle of artificial night is the pretence of it, the paradox therein, but also the strangeness of the phenomenon which lends itself to all kinds of fantasy for millennials struggling with the end of the world to the most well informed scientists. The eclipse is also a transition between light and dark, from day to night and back again, but as all rites of passage trigger a transformation process of the body or the mind, the return journey may leave us slightly altered. […] Like a black out when the lights of a town suddenly go dead, a break in time which can send machines off track and wreak havoc under a veil of calm. In his first series in 2011, Tony Regazzoni used a technique which led him to burn the wood which served as his canvas. As he burned the surface the motifs emerged through the untouched parts, the representation of the luminous parts of the eclipse. Drawing by burning ultimately gives a substantial form to a kind of brut energy, one which could be the heat which chars the wood, the sun which burns the retina, or perhaps even bodies dancing until out of breath. During his residency he initiated a new series through experimentation with different materials. Their full meaning comes to light when night falls…

Extracts from the text by Marie Cozette.