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Since he began painting, means of communication and public transport are recurring subjects in Daniel Fauville’s approach. The four heavy washed-up barges that the artist has created for Fluide are an invitation to travel, to daydream at the water’s edge. The cast iron conveys the massiveness of these boats while the rough and rusted material makes them look as though they are from another era. Like artefacts, these inert masses bear witness to the sweat of the men working in the region’s smelting works. Their simple and universal shapes form an emblem, a stele, the monument of a past era that is nevertheless so close to us. They are also similar in shape to a cradle or a sarcophagus, where our dreams are born and die. In Thuin, the boatmen’s town, these barges suggest the encounters, discoveries and exchanges that occur along the way. Together, they are the Gardiens du fleuve, the river of life, of the town, history, memories, the waterways and the metallurgy industry, travel and the town’s trade.
