Christopher Chapman, Director's Notes
Experimental Art Foundation Yearbook 2001

Flesh 2001

"Mathieu Gallois' ambitious installation offered an enigmatic and perceptually compelling experience. The work was a life size 'film set' depicting a desert oasis (with plushly-decorated tent, palm trees and sand). The scene was placed on a large studio set-like platform with a curved back painted in Chroma Key blue.

To create certain special effects in film and TV, the use of Chroma Key (or blue screen) technique allows the superimposition of objects and actors in the studio into a separate background scene. Gallois chose to paint the entire scene (sand, trees & tent) in Chroma Key. If it were filmed using the blue screen process, the entire installation would conceivably 'disappear', a nifty metaphor for the idea of a desert oasis as a mirage.

The ambient lighting emphasised the work's references to illusion, as the entire scene appeared insubstantial and mirage like. The title of the work was a reference to its sexualized theme, and to the suspension of desire that is a function of much contemporary cinema."

Stephen Zagala (O'Connell), catalogue essay.
'Flesh', Experimental Art Foundation Publication, 2001

"Because blue is the complimentary colour of flesh tone (a principle that makes it the favoured background hue in Chroma Key special effects), Gallois' mise en scene floats in a space that seems ambivalent to human life. As much as the content of the installation might promise titillating possibilities, the stage set withdraws from the viewer, quietly folding in on itself. Once again, it is not so much a pointed criticism or analytical position that underlines it meaning. Instead, Gallois has created an ambient sense of alienation which functions as a pure block of sensation."