This morning the valley was filled with mist. High above there was a pink tinge suggesting a rising sun above the fog. Today I’d like to share the work of Julien ‘Seth’ Malland with you. He’s a French artist who works all over the world. It puts me to shame that I find it hard to glean information about him, mainly because it reflects my Anglo-Saxon tendency not to prioritise learning foreign languages. Nearly everything I can find on him is in French and my GCSE doesn’t get me far.
Malland paints murals in response to stories of local peoples. The piece I’ve put up here is one of several murals he made in a village destroyed by a volcano in Indonesia. He aims to “bring about a symbolic attention to a community suffering from recent tragedy” (Varoom, Issue 19). I admire his consultative approach and find the murals very moving.
