Undoubtedly, what makes this piece original is the dial! A dial with a white grained base (like a sheet of blank Velin paper?) on which the artist Nicolas Barrom Forgues has given free rein to his imagination.
Born in 1980, Nicolas Barrome Forgues is an all-terrain illustrator and visual artist who lives and works in Paris. He started out at an Applied Arts school in Bordeaux, before embarking on
illustration and to create, with his friends, the Jeanspezial collective.
Influenced by his passion for cinema and science fiction works, by pop culture, as much
that through classical painting and his childhood memories, Nicolas’s creations immerse the viewer in a singular universe teeming with complex images and on several levels of reading.
His works are full of all kinds of monsters, robots, hairy animals, giant octopuses, strange fish, aliens, which mix with gently mocked icons and symbols, or more subversive messages. Without setting any limits, he borrows from both the great masters of classical painting and the creators of SpongeBob SquarePants.
This dial “ White paper » allowed Nicolas to stage his Bifrons, little mischievous characters. Gradually, his eccentric ideas and his pencil strokes gave birth to these unruly aliens who took possession of the dial.
Stealing or nibbling, here and there, an index finger, dismantling the logo, slaloming among a whole bunch of graphic symbols which will have punctuated the existence of the “01”. A joyful hodgepodge of fantasy and imagination, and a demanding exercise in style for an artist accustomed to large (very large) format works! Another point: these characters are covered in luminescent material to shine in the night!
If the dial within which this joyful disorder reigns is worked in Doodle Art style, the case back is treated like the final scene of a science fiction film, a universe dear to Nicolas and which has considerably nourished his Art.
Decorated using the metallization technique under glass, the back of the box is adorned with shades of gray, white and black and features two Bifrons taking a last look at the engine room of their ship… One of between them is about to activate the closing of a virtual airlock. A metaphor alluding to the end of a journey for these Bifrons who have reached their destination!
A “happy ending” also symbolizing the end of a period at Awake and the arrival, without a doubt, of a whole new generation of timepieces… To be continued.
