Romain Renard and Daria Schmitt Exhibition

With Mellvile, Romain Renard has brought a unique comic art series to life for nearly ten years. His four graphic novels are set in Melville, a small, imaginary town in remote western Canada, a mysterious place with a closed-off feel. Romain Renard transcends this story with his unique graphic style, skillfully combining charcoal and Indian ink. The artist sculpts his images of light and shadow, an astonishing technique that gives his wild landscapes a strange appearance and creates an atmosphere somewhere between a detective novel and a modern American western. The exhibition unveils for the very first time around a hundred pages and covers from the three albums in the series, Les Chroniques de Melvile, as well as large-format illustrations created especially for the occasion.

Daria Schmitt is also featured in the exhibition, which showcases the original pages from her latest album, Le Bestiaire du crépuscule, a vibrant tribute to the world of H.P. Lovecraft. Immersed in the heart of a public garden, we follow the wanderings of Providence, the park's guardian, who suffers from a severe case of compulsive daydreaming. Soon, the garden is teeming with creatures as wonderful as they are nightmarish.

Visitors will also admire the multitude of fantastical creatures, fish and giant octopuses that swarm through this tale. To depict this waking dream, Daria Schmitt showcases the full extent of her talent in black-and-white illustrations teeming with detail. The quality of her inking, with its interplay of hatching and solid blocks of colour, transports us into this extraordinary imaginary world and lends the story its full power. The exhibition also features a selection of panels from her album Ornithomaniacs, a gothic fable inspired by the world of Lewis Carroll.