About Antarticus
ANTARTICUS
In Antarticus Chaperon uses paint to summon space confetti from a parallel universe while icebergs fall in love and portals to other dimensions hover silently above vast and empty snowscapes. These paintings gracefully bridge the gap between the reality and fantasy of two particular places while inventing a new, surreal locale.
Antarticus is a visual retelling of the story of two places, the tropical island of Mauritius and the icy realm of the Antarctic. Rebecca Chaperon created these narrative paintings with the poetic license of a true storyteller as she represents these two landscapes through a fantastical lens that includes her own twists and flourishes. In these paintings bold, geometric, flat shape(s) inhabit landscapes that sometimes combine elements from both tropical and tundra biomes . These shapes can take the form of small colourful confetti or large meditative oddities.
The depiction of these two places in particular is inspired by stories passed down to Chaperon by her uncle and father, stories that captivated her as a child. Mauritius is a small tropical island off the coast of Madagascar where her father was born and raised. The other location, the Antarctic, she learned about through a series of candid letters written by her uncle during the mid seventies, where he explained his surrounding environment as he traversed areas of the Antarctic by sea.
Both Chaperon’s father and uncle shared these stories as legends that were tinged with nostalgia, reverence and joy. The colourful geometric ingredient in Antarticus represents the agency of the storyteller/artist as she assimilates the stories passed down to her and synthesizes a new visual mythology.