Hugo Janin (1993) is a Franco-Belgian artist based in Brussels. Through screen printing, he reinterprets photographs of contemporary landscapes into layered, limited-edition art prints. His work combines modern print techniques with a bold color palette, exploring themes of memory, dislocation, and the fragility of perception.

"Take a look at an image from Hugo Janin's Fantômes Futur series. The longer you observe it, the more its colors will change conceptually from strange to bizarre: from “strange”, as outside our usual, conventional perception of our environment that we think we know, to “bizarre” as the fruit of an anger that diffuses through the image like chromatography to make its colors vibrate.

Hugo Janin's images strangle us from our comfortable representation of convention to create the emotion necessary for action. Everything is on the verge of tipping over. They suggest evanescent forms from which our own spectres are about to emerge."

Camille Boisaubert - editor

Columba Livia

The Columba Livia project consists of a series of 10 almost abstract screenprints, which gradually reveal their subject: crushed pigeons. After this initial confrontation, often marked by surprise, even disgust, a question arises: why?

The pigeon, domesticated over 5,000 years ago, was initially raised for its droppings, used as fertilizer, and later as a messenger, thus playing an essential role in the rise of civilizations. However, with industrialization, this bird was relegated, its heritage forgotten, and it is now considered a pest. Far from its natural habitat, it now finds itself trapped in the city, in a feral state, neither entirely wild nor fully domestic, thus reflecting our own human condition.

The accident that crushes the pigeon, though sad and morbid, leaves an imprint of the animal on the road. Through this representation, Hugo Janin shifts our gaze from the abject to the sublime, encouraging us to question our relationship to the living world and to collective memory. The image, oscillating between present and heritage, marks a turning point where omens take shape, illuminating the dialogue between past and future.

This black-and-white photobook, self-published in 2020 in an edition of 50, gathers images from 2018–2020 taken during walks and rides across Brussels, the French countryside, and neighboring borders. Fragments of memory emerge through the lens—a meditation in grayscale, echoing the artist’s screen printed works in atmosphere and restraint.

Fantômes Futur - N°1 Refuge du Matin

An experimental review published by Éditions Les Murmurations (Paris), printed in 200 copies using risography. Centered on Janin's eponymous screen print, the piece serves both as extension and standalone object.

Future issues will invite contributors across disciplines, expanding a collaborative approach to contemporary printmaking.