"It Could Be Us" fresco by the duo Ensemble Réel

An old wooden sled, placed there like a relic of countless frantic descents. Flowers in shades of blue, mountains with fiery peaks, fragments of a dreamlike landscape. And then a teenager, a solitary but never isolated figure. He gazes at the horizon, immersed in a familiar feeling: wonder. It could be us. It could be yesterday.

Far from freezing memory, the artists fragment it. Black and white, touches of color. A layering of sensations, like a panorama that we recompose with each glance. Between the meticulousness of realism, the dynamism of street art, and the impressionist impulse, the fresco oscillates, always in tension between figuration and abstraction.

Here, everything is movement and transformation. Each creation is born from a play of materials: pieces of paper torn, recomposed, reassembled. A tactile memory, a puzzle of emotions that evolves, renews itself. This same principle extends to the wall: shapes interlock, embrace the contours, and play with the architecture. What was motionless becomes organic.

This is how the two brothers create, as a duo, in a perpetual interaction between their sensibilities. Mehdi, with his precise and realistic lines, sculpts presence, giving body to faces and objects. Hugues, in the spirit of abstraction, instills vibration, the hazy echo of memories. Like fragments of the same gaze that intersect and assemble, they weave a narrative in two voices, where each brushstroke responds to the other. Two sensibilities, a single breath. A whole greater than the sum of its parts.

Their art is refined. From now on, the gaze rises, takes a step back. Where their first frescoes were more concise, capturing the moment as closely as possible, this one opens up to infinity. A change of focus: zoom out, widen the frame, place the human figure at the heart of a vast landscape.

This is not a simple aesthetic choice. It is a necessity. Faced with the immensity of nature, man appears both tiny and anchored, caught between contemplation and the awareness of his place in this grandiose setting. This play on scale amplifies memory, making the past resonate.

Ensemble Réel invites us to revive these simple and precious moments: the first breath of fresh air at altitude, the morning light on the peaks, the haunting silence of snow-covered landscapes. A call to stop, to linger, to melt into the moment. To contemplate, and understand that this beauty is fragile, suspended by a thread.

Text credits: ©Be on the Crest.

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