About

Mur­mure is a duo of French artists com­posed of Paul Ressen­court (born in 1981) and Simon Roché (born in 1983). They met. In 2010 dur­ing their stud­ies at the « Ecole Supérieure d’Arts & Médi­as » de Caen, dis­cov­er­ing a com­mon pas­sion for draw­ing and street art, bey­ond their aca­dem­ic career. Their act­ive artist­ic prac­tice, which ingeni­ously trans­forms a chosen loc­a­tion into a poin­ted pictori­al nar­rat­ive, is insep­ar­able from metic­u­lous stu­dio work. After demon­strat­ing their mas­tery of char­coal draw­ing and screen print­ing tech­niques, they have added paint­ing on can­vas and the edi­tion of bronze sculp­tures to their prac­tice since 2021.
Delib­er­ately com­mit­ted, the Mur­mure duo explores strong themes in a play­ful, dream­like or poet­ic way, in order to share their vis­ion of the world. Child­hood, the home­less, the con­sumer soci­ety, new tech­no­lo­gies, or even the envir­on­ment and man’s impact on the plan­et, are their favor­ite sub­jects, which they for­mu­late dif­fer­ently depend­ing on the medi­um used : they pictori­ally echo the con­cerns of their gen­er­a­tion. Inspired by Banksy, Pejac, Leval­et and Ern­est Pig­non-Ern­est, Mur­mure offers a strik­ing icon­o­graphy due to the rel­ev­ance of its sub­ject, which chal­lenges the view­er and invites them to inter­act with the exist­ing struc­tur­al ele­ments. If each of Mur­mure’s works car­ries a mes­sage, it remains no less subtle, leav­ing the view­er free to inter­pret each image accord­ing to their sens­it­iv­ity.
Each of their pro­jects in an urb­an con­text is born before patient pro­duc­tion in their stu­dio. Work­ing with four hands, Paul and Simon most often draw with black chalk. Its soft­nesse allows them to obtain intense depth in blacks, and a par­tic­u­larly real­ist­ic ren­der­ing. Each work is the res­ult of a pro­cess of shared reflec­tion on the com­pos­i­tion, mean­ing and its sin­gu­lar­ity. It is first in the stu­dio that a pro­ject will be stud­ied and developed (or dis­carded), before it can see the light of day in the street through the cre­ation and repro­duc­tion of a draw­ing on scale 1. The pro­ject will often give rise in par­al­lel to a vari­ation of works inten­ded to be exhib­ited in a last­ing format favor­ing acquis­i­tion, as opposed to their urb­an col­lages of an eph­em­er­al nature.
Expand­ing their prac­tice to paint­ing since 2021, they have enriched their work with a col­or­ful palette and con­sequently, rein­forced the nar­rat­ive power of their images. Among their most emblem­at­ic pro­jects in recent years, we will remem­ber the use of the black plastic garbage bag as a sub­ject of sub­stance and form, a meta­phor for a plan­et dis­figured by mass con­sump­tion, and the emblem, for Mur­mure, of eco­lo­gic­al degrad­a­tion. The duo suc­ceeded in mak­ing this object mod­ern in a way that evokes tra­di­tion­al drapery, estab­lish­ing a mov­ing link between clas­sic­al art and cur­rent real­ity. Com­bin­ing black stone and char­coal with subtle and dra­mat­ic touches of light and col­or, Mur­mure skill­fully cap­tures the tra­gic essence of a sub­ject and the ques­tions that shad­ow it. On can­vas, the duo denounces the absurd para­dox of situ­ations linked to cli­mate change, where real­ity reg­u­larly exceeds fic­tion : a pess­im­ist­ic anti­cip­a­tion of our near future which appears less dis­tress­ing when put into col­or, thus offer­ing two levels of read­ing to the spec­tat­or depend­ing on wheth­er he decides to inter­pret in an anxi­ety pro­vok­ing way or not, like these bathers who sun­bathe on the Ice.

Adeline Jeudy – Cofounder & galer­ist at Galer­ie Lj Par­is

SOLO SHOW
Sat­ur­a­tion — Galer­ie Robe­s­pi­erre — Grande-Synthe. 2024.
Inno­cence — Exclus­ive Urb­an Art – Rome. 2023.
À la man­ière noire — Kawamatsu Gal­lery – Tokyo. 2023.
So far so good — Galer­ie LJ – Par­is. 2022.
Anthro­po­lo­gic – Aven­ue des Arts – Los Angeles. 2021.
Garb-age – Galer­ie LJ – Par­is. 2020.
L’âge d’or – Cab­in­et d’amateur – Par­is. 2017.

GROUP SHOW
4 Sea­sons — Mazel Gal­lery – Brus­sels. 2024.
Sur­real — Ver­tic­al Gal­lery – Chica­go. 2024.
Anti­cip­a­tion Fest­iv­al — Togæth­er / Académie du Cli­mat – Par­is. 2023.
Street Sum­mit — Kawamatsu Gal­lery – Tokyo. 2022.
Knoten­punkt — Affen­faust Galer­ie – Ger­many. 2022.
Titani­um — Stolen­Space Gal­lery – Lon­don. 2020.
Rouge & Noir – Galer­ie LJ – Par­is. 2020.
Post­cards of 2020 – Stolen­Space Gal­lery – Lon­don. 2020.
DDESSINPARIS – Galer­ie LJ – Par­is. 2020.
Details – Aven­ue des Arts – Los Angeles. 2020.
Galer­istes – Galer­ie LJ – Par­is. 2020.
Fine Line – Galer­ie Stolen­space – Lon­don. 2020
A/Z – Cab­in­et d’amateur – Par­is. 2017
Étoiles & stars – Cab­in­et d’amateur – Par­is. 2017

Street art contexte(s) Vol.2
Graf­fiti Art magazine #49
Urb­an con­tem­por­ary art guide 2020 — Graf­fiti art
Jux­ta­poz Magazine
Beau­x­Arts Magazine
Guide du street art à Par­is
Guide du street art en France
Meet the artist — Rnvhon­line by Robin van Halter­en
Poésie et cités — By Audrey Ver­metten

A big thank you to our friends for their help and sup­port : Guil­laume Moris­seau, Juli­en Alir­ol, Edou­ard Ducos, Nic­olas Camard as well as our com­pan­ions Mar­ie Beth­mont & Angélique Andril­lon.