Haas, Michel, Les coursiers I, 1997

“It’s in cities that the sense of the human is most poignant. All my subjects are linked to this. I paint messengers that you see on the street every day; cellos because they have something to do with my own life (I played them for a long time) and because their form has something to do with the human form.”(1)

The paper has been worked, scratched and impastoed almost violently to bring out the shape of a courier, defined more clearly by touches of color. The courier’s materiality and anonymity make him a timeless figure of the city.

1, interview for Libération with Henri-François Debailleux