Studio visit: FSTN

Car driving Brussels may have known him in his past life as patient parking attendant Pierre, but we are taking a furious trip down the rabbit hole to other underground terrain ruled by Pierre Coubeau: the jet-black and disconcertingly hilarious Wonderland that he draws under the pseudonym FSTN. “Cynical? No, that goes too far! [Laughs] I’m much too sensitive to be cynical.”

Nothing in his hands, nothing up his sleeve except a ballpoint, Tipp-Ex, a stack of beer coasters, and some sketch books. These are the tools with which Pierre Coubeau, alias FSTN tackles the world, holding up a shiny, jet-black mirror to it. It’s a parallel universe in which he temporarily puts aside his peace-loving soul for a therapeutic session of kill your darlings – or at least your characters. “Yes, it is a bit dark isn’t it. I just can’t seem to make pretty, cute things. I once made a birth announcement and a wedding invitation for my brother, all hearts and kind, beautiful people hugging each other. But even then there was a fear that I would let my inner Tim Burton get the better of me. I don’t do it to shock people or wag my finger at them. It’s just the universe that appeals to me. Black, but with a certain lightness, humour, acerbic, sarcastic at the most. Cynical? No, that goes too far! [Laughs] I’m much too sensitive to be cynical. My motto is: ‘Détendez vous, pêtez un coup’. Relax, take it easy. Too much seriousness irritates me.”

The things FSTN – a remnant of the nickname Fiston the now 27-year-old draughtsman was once given – scratches onto his paper are raw, violent, perverted, but also starkly precise. His work displays a mind-blowing technique that strives for perfection (in impressively fluid drawings and typography) and a disarming inventiveness, both with respect to framing and the perspective of his drawings and to the merciless punishments he dreams up for his characters. The beauty of horror, the allure of the abject. The smartly dressed executives that populate his tiny universe of 72 connected beer coasters and try to shove all kinds of things down our throats may be swimming in cash, but they are also plagued by demons that will inevitably lead them to violent self-destruction. Sweet revenge from the underground, where FSTN was a parking attendant for some time. “It’s surprising how people are automatically against you. It makes you want to die. Sometimes it’s funny, but mostly it’s just really sad. You’re there to serve them and they bark at you as though you were a cop or something. That’s an experience that made me very, very humble. [Screams of laughter] I’ll choose organising an exhibit and having people complement me on my work any day.”

FSTN recently took part in the exhibit “La Bellone fait le mur”, in advance of which he had said that people could take parts of his work home. An exciting idea: seeing your artistic universe like mosaic stones – little parts of a greater whole – spread around a great number of people. “Well, that’s not actually really how it went. It was more like free salami samples at the supermarket. Some people tore off little pieces and left quietly, but other people attacked my work as though their lives depended on it and took home whole rolls. So you can forget the mosaic. I think there are two or three people who have a lot of it. And then of course there were people who were incensed: ‘You can see the wooden frame! Oh no! You can see the wood!’ [Snorts with laughter] At Café Central, which draws a very different crowd, the same thing happened. It’s free, you know. But I won’t be doing that again. It’s fun to do once – live out that destructive side. But it’s still your work. There was no higher purpose; I had no political or anarchic agenda. I just did it to see how people would react. Hang your work on a white wall at Wiels and nobody would even think of actually doing that. Although the work is the same. That fascinates me.”

Experiments like that characterise FSTN’s artistic practice. Essential to his world are the sketchbooks he has been keeping since 2006. “I studied illustration at Saint-Luc, but my work isn’t actually very illustrative. That created a kind of tension between me and my teachers: they wanted to lead me to pure illustration – that was their job – while I wanted to do my own thing. So I didn’t really find my own path during my studies, but that is when I started filling my sketchbooks.” The sketchbooks allow FSTN the freedom to try out new things, they are the laboratory in which he furnishes his monstrous universe with tentacles. “I would systematically do a lot of research for my drawings, and I still do. That’s how you gradually appropriate a universe. It’s essential to the way I work, and that’s why I also display my sketchbooks at exhibitions, not to underscore specific connections, but to contextualise my work. And then people can make of it what they will. The sketchbooks allow me to work spontaneously; I can’t just make a drawing on a sheet of expensive, handmade paper; that’s way too much pressure. In a sketchbook, on the other hand, you can just let loose, and before you know it, you’ve created something. Over time, the drawings in my sketchbooks have evolved to veritable compositions, and the typography has become increasingly important as well. After my training – I started a course at La Cambre too, but didn’t finish it because I had to start at the very beginning again – I dedicated myself completely to what I thought was good. And that’s the best thing to do: that honesty is essential if and when you show people your work. It genuinely has to come from you yourself.”

That is also apparent from FSTN’s influences. Ranging from films by John Carpenter to Marguerite Duras and Shaun Tan to Pat Andrea, they all filter through into his work and hover over the pages of his sketchbooks explicitly. And yet, FSTN’s work stubbornly resists associations that are too clear or obvious. “You know, I started studying art when I was 18, but I’ve been drawing all my life. You gradually start developing a modus operandi. For myself, I think it is important to avoid flying on auto-pilot. You have to keep thinking about everything. As a comic strip artist, you are constantly repeating the same characters, so a certain routine can be very helpful. I, on the other hand, need to research constantly and take risks.”

FSTN has been developing his oeuvre for six years now. Since he exhibited his Triptychs at The Tattoo Shop, exactly one year ago, it has started bearing fruit. Album covers – “I haven’t been doing anything else here” –, exhibitions, a commission from Hotel Bloom, and since October, a new studio where the radio plays nothing but – you’ll never guess – classical music. It’s a studio that has featured in the Wunderkammer several times already. FSTN’s dark universe with the twinkling light of a gruesome smile should have switched on a light bulb for us because it was not so far from the South Station in Anderlecht that we entered the building that also houses the studios of Hell’o Monsters, Silio and Elzo Durt, and François Jacob. “Until recently, my studio was in the Brussels Art Factory. But there I was on a floor where everyone did something else. For some reason I found it really difficult to produce anything there. Here I’ve got Hell’o Monsters who work really hard, and Silio, who... well… also works. [Laughs] It’s thanks to him that I found out there was a spot opening up here, and I grabbed the chance immediately. It does stink of dead rats here, but…” [Hilarity] “Hey, we can hear you!” Hell’o Monsters quickly interject. “Relax, you guys aren’t the dead rats. No, in all seriousness, it’s a great place and I’m enjoying myself.”

Borough: Anderlecht
Hotel Bloom: Check out the permanent collage FSTN will be making for Hotel Bloom's lobby from Friday 30 January, www.hotelbloom.com
Family business: BOYA collective, www.boyaentertainment.com
Info: fstndrawing.com / www.facebook.com/FSTNdraw

Photos © Gautier Houba