i see faces in the wall
Before lunch and, frankly, killing a little time before heading to Oscar’s, a favorite restaurant in Antibes, I wandered into a maze of streets in Vieil Antibes. I had walked these streets during other visits. One in particular ends (as many do) in a dead end.
I was surprised to find small sculptures, small figurines, embedded in the walls. Last year I saw similar figurines on other walls in the old part of Antibes.
A young woman sitting nearby, smoking a cigarette, showed me a head among some stones on a wall, and told me that these images “sont partout dans le quartier.” (Click on any photo to see it larger and in more detail.)
The artist likes to use exposed spaces in walls where age has made them crumble, exposing what lies underneath. He places heads and sometimes bodies among small stones in the walls.
I do not really know who does these small sculptures. But, I do have a good guess. There is a man who has a small art studio on rue James Close in Vieil Antibes. He works sometimes outside the door of his studio, fashioning various objects. His hair is a bit wild. He is not distracted by the people who pass.
ADDENDUM: The next day, after posting the previous remarks and photographs, I chose another street in the old part of Antibes where I had hoped to find more small sculptures embedded in the walls. I looked for a street where the walls had crumbled a bit.
The first street I chose had art work. The young woman, who had told me that the sculptures were ubiquitous in the quartier, was correct.
ADDENDUM #2: Today (24 January 2015) I decided to walk by the shop on rue James Close in Antibes, where I thought the artist of the figurines might work. I had wanted to take some “proof-photos” of the window, to find some evidence that my guess was correct.
And, who should I find but the artist himself? He gave me permission to take his picture, and he offered me one of his pieces, signed. He told me that there were 700 small sculptures around the quarter that he had done.
His name is Ho Lui. Some short videos of his work are on his Facebook page Ho Lui Scultpure.
un Voyageur 