Justin Weiler redécore la chambre 107 de l'Hôtel de France à Nantes

Le Voyage à Nantes has partnered up with the city's hostels to create a collection of permanent hotel rooms designed by artists.

Offering the possibility of an exceptional stay while discovering an artist's aesthetic world is the mission of this collection of artist-designed hotel rooms spread throughout the city. 

Justin Weiler is a painter - except he uses paint as if he were sculpting with it. Playing with a repertoire of rather "poor" architectural elements (greenhouses, blinds, iron curtains) he also draws inspiration from materials found on construction sites, like MAP (an adhesive mortar for drywall) or the whiting used to cover up the storefronts of empty shops, while also using noble materials such as India ink. Along with these different techniques, materials and sources of inspiration, by using increasingly sophisticated protocols with every new project, Weiler has created a profuse body of work where meticulousness, dexterity, and a love of effort are just as important as the precision and beauty of a final work. 

This beauty partly comes from the light radiation from his paintings - shadows, chiaroscuro shadin, reflections and transparency - which transforms the space in which they are featured. Revealing different levels of black by applying paint in several fine strata, the artist then works on the painting in depth, like a sculptor, ensnaring light by highlighting contrasts. 

For Chambre 107, Justin Weiler conjugated two vocabularies in his repertoire. Like the walls of a greenhouse, the big, painted windows stretch to the top of the significantly tall room, transforming it into an altar, while the motif of the blinds - vertically transposed in response to the volume of the room - acts as a second skin in the space. At the border between interior and exterior, these lines created a grid in the room, revealing openings in the architecture through the light they create. 

Justin Weiler was born in 1990. He lives and works in Nantes. He won Nantes' visual arts prize in 2016.