Matthieu Charneau’s postclimax diary brings together seven chapters. The first five contain stunning, predominantly black and white self-portraits whose titles reference The Tarot of Marseilles deck. The last two chapters are devoted to the artist’s collages and paintings.

From his earlier work, we know the artist to be a fantastic portraitist with a timeless style whose photographs are dynamic, poetic, and attention-holding. In his new body of work, and we are focusing on the photographic parts of postclimax diary, he continues to examine time, portraiture, and the human form. He also presents a lesser-known side, that of the artist centering his attention on the more gritty’ more gritty, intimate aspects, with nude self-portraits that are sometimes augmented with Expressionist strokes of paint and dripping.

With its transgressive theme and the centrality of the body, postclimax diary offers a transmuted perspective on individual images, with the work’s psychological specificity at the center of each photograph.

The work holds elements of individual isolation, sexual conflict, and erotic tensions. It is crafted in response to the exploitation and harsh reality of a male model’s life. Each image is a careful study, starting from the subject’s body language to the articulation of the muscular form, from the shade to the angle of the shot, and to the creation of shadows. This is perfectly demonstrated in play iii and iiii, in which the symbolism of the hand jumps to the foreground. Shadows play a central role in the series because they represent the space outside the viewer’s reach, stimulating the curiosity and desire to discover more within them. 

Charneau understands the imaginative effect and power of encountering an image depicting modernism and hedonism's wondrous possibilities. He also understands that violence can be considered both ritualistic and existential. In some pictures of the 13 series, referencing the 13th card of the Tarot of Marseilles deck, he addresses certain peoples' fascination with and desensitization to violence. 

According to filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky, author of The Way of Tarot: “the 13th card invites a radical purification of the past, a revolution that takes place in the nonverbal or preverbal depths of the individual, in the shadow of that black terrain, that unknown region of ourselves, from which our humanity emerged like a matrix. […] The work occurs like an outburst of energy, a quick and liberating explosion.”

Dark ritualism or slaughter invites the viewer to reflect on symbolic topoi, such as blood and death, that are often repressed in everyday life. At the same time, there is a direct reference to the artist’s movie career, as in the use of fake blood and, in particular, the appearance of things.

Charneau’s compelling xx1 photograph refers to the last Arcanum of the Tarot, which Jodorowsky explains as “a work of cleansing, a revolution necessary for the renewal and the ascent that follows after it, one degree at a time, toward the total realization of Le Monde/The World (XXI).”

The artist’s le matt series points out a play on his first name and The Fool / Le Mat card from The Tarot, which is the primordial symbol of freedom from dependency. Jodorowsky states, “It represents the original boundless energy, total freedom, madness, disorder, chaos, or even the fundamental creative urge.”

With le matt iii through vi, the artist opens up a world of fantasy and freedom.

Charneau captures his inner world as well as his outer appearance. To do this, he uses distortion and dramatic contrasts between black and white and double exposure, layering two or more images on top of one another. In le matt iii, his body becomes almost obliterated by repeated exposures. They surround and engulf him, making it hard to tell where one thing ends and where the rest begins. Its visual excess is not an escape from reality. Instead, the artist sees it as a way of understanding a culture focused on consumption and spectacle.

Jodorowsky explains that “the key phrase of The Fool could be “All paths are my path.”  He depicts the eternal traveler wandering through the world without ties or nationality.  From a reductive perspective, he could be seen as a madman wandering toward his destruction.  In the most elevated interpretation, we see The Fool as an individual detached from all needs, complexes, and judgments, unbound by any taboos because he has abandoned all demands. He is an Illuminatus, a god, a giant drawing an immeasurable liberating strength from the energy flow.”

Conventional representations of the Crucifixion typically highlight Jesus’s suffering by showing his emaciated body hanging limply with his head lowered and his eyes downcast. According to Jodorowsky, the Hanged Man’s card from The Tarot “can evoke the figure of Christ representing the universal androgyne, and through that the theme of the gift of oneself.”

With le matt i2 and ii, Charneau has developed a complex iconography with a diptych that seems to focus on Christ’s feet. The feet in question are the artist’s, indirectly referencing the artist’s suffering with a beautiful photographic image in which he seems to deconstruct his faith. For him, it represents not only a survival tactic but also defiance of spiritual vacuity in a society that perceives both religious and political belief as naive on the one hand and as dangerously manipulable on the other.

The artist clears, defines, and focuses on his path. With resilience, a focus on a clear set of goals, and a sense of self-belief, he doesn’t care he might not “fit the mold”; actually, he came out of it, broke it, and reinvented it around his ideals. Charneau is an outsider as well as an insider who treads interesting ground and bridges a gap to a new cultural movement.

The artist’s main drive is to embrace who we are; the constraints we go through and the challenges we endure are a means to affect and mold our creative vision and approach to our work. It’s about being clear on what drives, inspires, and motivates us that is important.

Charneau’s unapologetic use of an iPhone illustrates that the connection with his subject matter is more important than the gear, even though he has ample ability. The photographs were shot in his studio without being painstakingly posed and lit, yet the artist meticulously attended to every detail and pared away all distractions. 

What is intriguing throughout the artist's photographs is that his images are concerned with preserving the act of looking rather than touching. His self-portraits are sensual, and their sensuality is not devoid of abstraction. Surrounded by the black of the stark shadow, his photographs declare that looking, a gaze, however distanced or lurid or stylized it may be, is something worthy of recording and preserving.

The result is a work that's both erotic and innocent, playful and seductive, masculine and feminine, open and mysterious.

Matthieu Charneau started as a model and an actor and has been a keen visual artist for many years. postclimax diary is, in part, a vibrant commentary on his life as a model.

- Jimi Dams -