Water, Eden, Hell | Francky Criquet

Water will be the scarce commodity of the future (20 countries share 5% of the world’s fresh water and live under permanent water stress), but it will also be the stuff of fantasies and pleasures. Water is one of the four elements, both gentle and powerful. In every religion, in every civilisation, in every myth, water is the source of life.

In Francky Criquet’s work, water, the universal symbol of fecundity and fertility, is represented in the figures. On his canvases, mermaids rub shoulders with tritons and Nereids. Water’s transparency evokes purity, virginity and freshness, but as humans cannot breathe in it, it also has a dark side. In this way, the artist, who lives in Anjou, far from the cities, reminds us through his works that water, a source of nourishment and creation, of well-being, daydreaming and meditation, is an element that must be preserved and protected.