The Man of the Meuse: Sozyone (2019)

The Man of the Meuse. Some may recall that Sozyone had made a painting on a gable wall, which is now missing, at the intersection between Nagelmickers Street and Quai sur-Meuse. But it was considerably smaller than the Man of the Meuse. Rarely has Wallonia known such monumental works! Immediately, the alert eye will recognise Sozyone’s style, his character with such a distinctive yet anonymous face, whose traits are barely sketched by a play between the different coloured shapes. As is quite common in Sozyone’s works, the composition represents a man dressed in black with a bowler hat and several birds. These are elements that a certain René Magritte also loved. Where Sozyone’s work is more original, however, is through the use that it makes of the two gable walls. He plays maliciously with the perspective, offering us only the character’s upper and lower parts; the rest is suggested by its distance.