Gilles T. Lacombe

Art that matters. Any art that has an impact on those exposed to it. And like any good art, it gives you a view on life. It asks questions. It challenges assumptions, it opens horizons, it takes you on a journey. It might offer company or shelter or leave you exposed to your own hopes and fears… but it always gets to you.

I am not sure it is different. But it is young. It has not made its way into the world yet. It is a relatively undefined space. So it has all the advantages of not being classified as a “school” or “style”. And I like that. It provides a sense of freedom and challenge I feel very comfortable with. But like any piece or form of art, today it will also be viewed as a form of investment. Interesting question — will ImpactArt be seen as a safe investment? I don’t know.

It’s funny, but looking back, I have been doing ImpactArt for a while. I just didn’t know it. There was no term for it. It was not an available option. But I had the good fortune to work a lot with scientists in my life. That opened a lot of doors for me and my work. Their capacity for asking questions and challenging the status quo of their field in order to come up with new answers to old questions has always inspired me. And on the other side, I have been teaching a lot. Students take nothing for granted. They keep you on your toes. Their questions may not be new, but they ask them in a totally different way than my generation did. A lot of energy and insight comes from that kind of work.

Not sure that it is. What is sure is that it has been around for a good while. It has been a good companion of the human race for at least 40,000 years. I don’t know anybody who visited Lascaux and left indifferent. What sets us apart from other animals, some say, is the capacity to imagine what is not. And then create it. I think that is a pretty good definition of what art does.