Guillaume Lemarquier • Mist: Happymess

We are pleased to present Happymess, the new exhibition by artist Guillaume Lemarquier, also known under the pseudonym MIST. This exhibition celebrates 5 years of collaboration with the artist. With a career spanning over twenty years, the Montpellier-based artist is one of the leading figures on the French urban art scene. With the Happymess exhibition, Guillaume Lemarquier continues his research in the studio, highlighting the perpetual search for pleasure in his artistic creation process.

The question of the relationship between pleasure and artists coming from graffiti such as Mist is particularly relevant. While graffiti is a spontaneous, adrenaline-fuelled activity, studio work is the expression of more thoughtful reflection within an enclosed space, for a very different purpose. Where, then, is the energy to create the work? And the inspiration?

In 2019, Matchpoint, Mist's first solo show at CHENUS LONGHI, revolved around games and sport, with the idea of putting pleasure back at the center of things. In 2021, his exhibition The Rebirth focused on the search for pleasure, with new paintings drawing on various past series to create a new, even more dynamic one.

In 2024, Happymess symbolizes this satisfied quest for pleasure and the anchoring in the present. A new prism appears here, a new form of culmination. With some fifteen works on canvas and paper, Happymess unveils a luminous, textured body of work that recaptures the energy of graffiti while transcending its boundaries. The decomposition of the letter is given free rein in a happy chaos between construction and deconstruction, in a play of transparencies and superimpositions. The technique is perfected and the pleasure is explosive.