Altius

After more than a month of work, Mat & Zekky have just completed a major task: a 420 m² floor fresco representing the mythological figure of Apollo, painted on one of the stadium's basketball courts. Saint-Symphorien. In the style so characteristic of the two artists, a mixture of vibrant colors and antique marble sculpture.

“It was a real challenge, because of the technique used, but also the weather,” says Zekky. We barely had any days of full sunshine. » To achieve this work on the ground, the two artists had to navigate a bit visually, since they were deprived of drones for almost the entirety of the project. They therefore resorted to squaring, which Michelangelo or Leonardo da Vinci already used during the Renaissance. The duo cut their model into small tiles which they then transposed, changing scale, into 50 cm² boxes, traced on the asphalt. When the weather permitted, that is to say quite rarely, hundreds of liters of a paint used in construction, very resistant, but totally hydrophobic when applied, were applied tirelessly by the two artists, helped by three interns from the Blot school, but also teenagers from a neighborhood center.

“We weren’t sure it was going to work,” says the artist from Reims. When we were able to see, thanks to a drone, in the last days, that we had succeeded in the look, it was a great relief and a real adrenaline rush. » The result is indeed impressive. “Altius”, the name of the work, borrowed from the Olympic motto (“Citius, Altius, Fortius – Communiter”, or “Faster, higher, stronger – together”), is magnificently revealed on the ground of the Saint -Symphorian thanks to the power of the Apollo's gaze and the vibrancy of the colors that surround him.

The origin of this project was a commission from the city of Reims, as part of the Terres de Jeux 2024 label. The work also received the Cultural Olympiad label from the organizers of Paris 2024.