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
Exhibitions
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
Publications
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
Specials thanks
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.