Hervé Leblan

The realms of fantasy produce their own aesthetic laws with direct connections between the heart of the imagination and the unimaginable worlds of childlike wonder. Especially in cinema, digital 3D animation plays an important role in the production and development of such worlds. The French artist Hervé Leblan knows and has mastered these tools since the emergence of this technology. His involvement in large cinematic productions such as The Tale of Despereaux with Emma Watson and Dustin Hoffman reflects the path taken by a genre specialist through the jungle of ever greater complexity and representational exactness.

Leblan’s pictorial worlds show narrow paths and wide expanses, romantic worlds and compositional views through the lush greenery of digital transformation. An East Asian monk or warrior, seated alone on a high mountain and peering out past an ancient, twisted pine tree towards the horizon over a richly detailed and seemingly animated rocky landscape – such romantic motifs and composition strongly recall the works of Caspar David Friedrich.

The romantic setting soars even higher into the fantastical when ancient trees with massive branches serve monks as bridges for reaching their goal – a netherworld or intermediate realm – accompanied and greeted by a flock of fiery red fantasy birds that cross the silent wanderers’ path through the enchanted forest like a brightly coloured visual commentary. Wherever the path of digital image generation may lead, without the sensitive eye of man, ready to receive the fantastical, this world and genre remain a quietly dreaming monad.

Stephan Reisner