JULIEN BONET - Survivor

Technique: Promptography on Hahnemühle Fine Art paper
Size: 50 x 40 cm
Edition: 3 + 1 AP
Year: 2023

Signed, dated and edition numbered by the artist on a separate label.

Survivor

The figure of the survivalist emerges as a dark allegory of the present: a being between nature and myth, marked by a world that has gone haywire. His body, wrapped in branches, nets, and leaves, recalls archaic hunting rituals as well as the camouflage clothing of modern guerrillas. The animal horn, a relic of prey or trophy, becomes a symbol of survival in a landscape that offers neither home nor refuge.

In this work, Bonet addresses the growing fascination with "prepping" and self-sufficiency—phenomena arising from the fear of societal collapse. The survivalist embodies the ambivalence of this attitude: he is simultaneously autonomous and paranoid, close to nature and looter. The weapon in his hand hints at the potential for violence inherent in every struggle for survival, while the colorful confetti remnants on the ground seem almost macabre—a relic of a lost celebration, a civilization that exists only in traces.

The figure serves as a reminder of how thin the veneer of civilization is. It reminds us that survival often has less to do with heroism than with improvisation and desperation—a perspective that recurs repeatedly in Bonet's masquerades : masks that simultaneously protect and unmask, conceal and reveal.