Les Coursiers I
Michel Haas
1997
Mixed media on paper
120 x 124 cm
Signed by the artist in pale blue at the bottom center
"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