Lucie et les poils (Lucy and the Furs), 2009

On Patrick Jannin’s website many of the drawings shown here are placed in various categories, but this is not because they were created as series, more that some drawings have themes and subjects in common. They have been created over more than twelve years, the earliest in 2009.

Jannin draws almost every day, so the selection here, though extensive, is by no means all his work. He describes the process like this: ‘I don’t ever think about what I’m going to draw – I sit at my desk and draw a first line. It might be an eye, or a vague profile, and then the rest follows without me asking myself any questions. It’s like automatic writing, but instead of letters and words I create organs, limbs, decorative elements. Sex is everywhere in my work, even where you don’t see it. I am thinking of trees, for example, which are like so many phalluses planted in the scenery, of fire which represents desire and destruction at the same time – don’t we say “consumed with desire”?, of hybrid animals. Yes, sex is everywhere, but it’s never cute, let alone innocent. My loves are monster loves, and my passions are destructive, the bodies mingle until they devour each other, the lovers are cannibals. The skin has its textures and its smells, the sexes their secretions and tastes, and we all know that without that fucking would be boring, rather like death. Some degree of perversion is important and necessary for pleasure, unless you are devoid of imagination and practice coitus only in order to reproduce or to empty your balls.’