Mireille Blanc

L'amour is part of a group of paintings produced from photographs of sweat-shirts. Very typical of her work, the artist transforms the picture by playing on the scale ratio to provide a different angle. By the inclination of the focal length towards a close perspective and by enlarging the picture, Mireille Blanc subtly fades the subject out of the image, and constructs a filter between the artwork and the one who is looking at it. By blurring the inscription and the image's context, often old-fashion and kitsch, she focuses on the vagueness of the elements treated and plays on the enigmatic nature of subjects she encounters.

Dans Ballon, Mireille Blanc s’intéresse à la picturalité de la matière aluminium de ce ballon géant qui procure au spectateur une impression de déjà vu et renvoie à d’agréables souvenirs de fêtes d’anniversaire. Le sujet est ici représenté pour lui-même, magnifié par le flash de l’appareil photo. Mais les taches d’eau et les coups de spray granuleux dévoilent les truchements de la reproduction de l’image photographique en peinture. Entravant la perception du motif, le ballon semble finalement flotter dans une atmosphère vaporeuse et quasiment intemporelle.

Mireille Blanc qui travaille essentiellement à partir de photos de famille a ici demandé à Anne-Sarah de lui en fournir une de sa propre enfance. C'est ainsi le gâteau d'anniversaire de la galeriste qui est représenté dans la toile 5 ans.

Fruits d'anniversaire is a continuation of the artist's work on the motif of cakes. In this large format, the use of tracing paper allows the artist to meticulously reproduce all the details of the source image. The charcoal reinforces the play of light and shadow of the candles. The shape of the apples as well as the mixture of materials evoked bring a certain sensuality to the scene. The undulating lines of the tablecloth echo optical artworks that blur the viewer's visual perception.

In Chemisier, Mireille Blanc draws from her family photographs form the 1980s. Like often in her work, she reframed the image to let appear only the chest, making her subject more indeterminate. She includes the creation process in her painting,  with notably a printing defect that adds these striations to the image. Hence, she tends progressively towards abstraction, where this personal memory becomes  a more casual image.

Agrégat s’inspire de la photographie d’un objet énigmatique, un conglomérat indistinct de coquillages et d'huîtres tenu du bout des doigts, et reproduite à l’huile sur bois. La matière, la brillance et le relief de ces formes troubles attirent immédiatement l’œil mais le cadrage très serré rend impossible la compréhension du contexte de l’œuvre. En reproduisant les altérations qu’a subies la photographie à l’atelier, Mireille Blanc instaure une distance supplémentaire entre le spectateur et l’œuvre tout en donnant à cette dernière une réalité spatiale et temporelle nouvelle.

Meringue s'inscrit dans un rapport d'attraction/répulsion de Mireille Blanc aux sujets qu'elle emprunte à notre répertoire visuel quotidien. Le gâteau est magnifié par la lumière du flash de l'appareil photo qui le fait aussi disparaître dans l'ombre, et écrasé par le point de vue surplombant. La matière crémeuse de la meringue, la forme sculpturale du gâteau et de son assiette en carton argenté, à la limite du bon goût et du kitsch, deviennent des sujets proprement picturaux.

On retrouve dans Marbre, les courbes généreuses de la série des gâteaux sans pour autant reconnaître son sujet de prime abord. Comme l’indique le titre, l’intention de l’artiste se porte ici sur la matière alors que l’objet demeure inaccessible, rendu méconnaissable par un plan très serré. En peignant ce détail de la coiffure d’une jeune fille à partir de la photographie d’une sculpture exposée au Louvre, Mireille Blanc brouille nos repères en nous imposant de regarder autrement et s’amuse à mélanger et mettre en abyme plusieurs médiums.

Dans Kinder coquillages, Mireille Blanc détourne la tradition de la nature morte à partir d’une photographie scotchée dans son atelier donnant son titre à l’exposition. Un œuf Kinder en morceaux et des coquillages posés au hasard, sur une feuille de sopalin, s’agencent en une composition incongrue et mystérieuse. À travers un point de vue surplombant, l’artiste s’amuse à défaire les formes pour libérer la matière picturale. Là encore, la lecture du sujet est brouillée et l'objet initial tend vers l'abstraction.

The source image of Sucre glace comes from a detail of a photograph of a T-shirt stained with icing sugar. The white of the sugar creates a sort of constellation on the surface of the navy blue fabric. The framing is so tight that you can make out the knits of the garment. The subject is unrecognisable and evokes at first glance the pattern of a wave. Thus the painting becomes almost abstract and its object remains deliberately enigmatic.

Ice cream puise dans une imagerie kitsch, intime et universelle, donnant au spectateur une impression de déjà vu, comme souvent face aux œuvres de Mireille Blanc. L’artiste transforme ici la matière comestible d’un banana split gourmand en objet pictural tout aussi crémeux, à la touche empâtée. Ainsi, l’artiste célèbre le pouvoir de la peinture, qui redevient avant tout une surface de matière et un écran entre le souvenir d’un repas et sa reproduction photographique.

In Zeppelin, Mireille Blanc takes as her source image the tight plan of a dish containing dinosaur-shaped biscuits, held in the hands of someone. By adopting an overhanging point of view on these miniature dinosaurs and preserving the camera's flash, the artist multiplies displacements in relation to the initial subject, to reach a particular bias between figuration and abstraction.

Motifs is a rare self-portrait by Mireille Blanc who takes us into the everyday life of her studio. The outdated and colourful forms of the cushion and the folds of the clothes become objects of painting. The overhanging perspective and the tight framing blur the perception of the subject. The context of the scene is evacuated to draw the eye to the singularity of the materials.

With quelle ardeur!, Mireille Blanc makes the object of the source image (a small black and white photograph) disappear through a fleeting perspective and the camera's flash. On wood, the paint returns to the surface as the image disappears, leaving only its silvery texture with luminous reflections. The real subject of the work is therefore the material, underlined by an intriguing caption whose typography has been meticulously reproduced with a brush. Here again, the viewer is free to place the memory he or she wishes.

Sweat jaune est un dessin en noir et blanc représentant, en son centre, un motif indéterminé, perturbé par les plis du vêtement sur lequel il figure. Le sweat-shirt étant porté, le tissu est en mouvement et ce qui tend vers la perte du sujet et joue sur l'indétermination de l'objet traité.

La toile Petit dragon représente un tee-shirt tenu par des mains d'enfant. Les motifs présents sur le textile se fondent sous le pinceau de l’artiste, devenant presque abstraits. À travers sa pratique, Mireille Blanc opère un certain nombre d’altérations et de déformations de l’image pour brouiller la perception du sujet traité. Ce faisant, le titre vient ici nous éclairer sur l’origine des motifs peints, installant un jeu entre les repères mémoriels du spectateur et sa perception.

In Feutre, tee-shirt, Mireille Blanc reproduces the accidental marks of wear of the photograph that inspired the canvas, such as water stains, in the foreground. The tight framing on the torso and the zenithal light that frames the rainbow pattern make any piece of skin disappear and shift the viewer's point of view to the felt and pencil strokes. Thus this t-shirt - made by a child's hand - becomes a painting subject, magnified by the large format.

Plume, vase explores the issues of material representation. The texture of the ceramic and its roughness, through the impasto of the oil paint and the frontal light, contrasts with the lightness of the feather. By taking this Vallauris-style vase as her subject, the artist conjures up kitsch imagery in a surprisingly staged way. The plunging perspective accentuates the strange shapes of the object, which becomes almost organic.

In the painting Poire, the scattered pieces of pear arranged in a plate are overexposed to the light of the camera and disappear to become abstract forms offered to the viewer's imagination. In the background, fragments of children's toys in flashy colours can be seen scattered across the table, contrasting with the traditional still-life backgrounds.

Le dessin En haut du jardin s'inspire d'une photographie tirée d'un album de famille de l'artiste. En utilisant ce cliché la représentant enfant, elle se réapproprie l'autoportrait en mettant en perspective l'image-source de manière à couper son visage, détournant ainsi l'attention du regardeur, et se focalisant sur les personnages-motifs du tee-shirt.

Dans Poisson, Mireille Blanc dessine un bibelot, sûrement une lampe au design kitsch, presque repoussant. À partir d'un cliché de cet objet, l'artiste joue sur la réflexion en utilisant le noir et blanc pour accentuer le détournement du sujet. Ce faisant, elle intègre des détails de construction de l'image comme ce bout de scotch au milieu du dessin, témoignant du processus d'abstraction effectué par l'artiste.

The source image of Pierre is a fruit basket decorating the staircase of the Fine Arts Museum in Aix-en-Provence. The coarse cut of a classical motif constitutes a first reinterpretation which the artist takes up to bring out new forms. In spite of the large format of the canvas, its almost two-tone colour scheme disturbs the perception of all the details, while the mixture of vegetable and edible elements leads to a loss of the overall subject. Our landmarks are all the more blurred as Mireille Blanc manipulates the image before painting by applying filters acting as lures such as spray or tape.

Sweat (Dauphins) is part of a group of paintings produced from photographs of sweat-shirts. Very typical of her work, the artist transforms the picture by playing on the scale ratio to provide a different angle. By the inclination of the focal length towards a close perspective and by enlarging the picture, Mireille Blanc subtly fades the subject out of the image, and constructs a filter between the artwork and the one who is looking at it. By blurring the inscription and the image's context, often old-fashion and kitsch, she focuses on the vagueness of the elements treated and plays on the enigmatic nature of subjects she encounters.

In Jonquille, Mireille Blanc explores the relation with reflection and materials penetration. To this end, she started from a photograph of a daffodil in a vase, located in front of an absorbent towel roll. By transforming the picture and playing on scale ratio, she focuses on the relation between the roll and the coloured vase, to lose the viewer in the image and blur the context.

Cakeboy is a painting produced from a photograph captured during a child birthday party. As usual in Mireille Blanc's work, the subject imposes itself with a relation of attraction/revulsion inherent to the instinctive nature of her work. The details manipulated in the painting represent studio's accidents during the photograph's development such as the water spots on the canvas. This work on details aims to lose the viewer and blur the artwork's context to constitutes a new reality linked to the image construction.

Sweat-shirt (Mer, océan) is very typical of Mireille Blanc's work on clothes. The repetition of the subject, a blue sweatshirt representing a seascape similar to the one in the background, works as an amused wink to the history of painting through the recurrent pattern  of the wave. Nevertheless, the artist focuses on the simulacrum in this reproduction by scattering clues such as the black border of the slide or the water stains on the picture, to finally plunge the viewer into the indeterminacy of the object he is facing.

Motif is part of a group of paintings produced from photographs of sweat-shirts. Very typical of her work, the artist transforms the picture by playing on the scale ratio to provide a different angle. By the inclination of the focal length towards a close perspective and by enlarging the picture, Mireille Blanc subtly fades the subject out of the image, and constructs a filter between the artwork and the one who is looking at it. By blurring the inscription and the image's context, often old-fashion and kitsch, she focuses on the vagueness of the elements treated and plays on the enigmatic nature of subjects she encounters.

Pull, dans les nuages is part of a group of paintings produced from photographs of sweat-shirts. Very typical of her work, the artist transforms the picture by playing on the scale ratio to provide a different angle. By the inclination of the focal length towards a close perspective and by enlarging the picture, Mireille Blanc subtly fades the subject out of the image, and constructs a filter between the artwork and the one who is looking at it. By blurring the inscription and the image's context, often old-fashion and kitsch, she focuses on the vagueness of the elements treated and plays on the enigmatic nature of subjects she encounters.

Dans L'Amour ! Mireille Blanc traite le motif des sweatshirts d'une manière nouvelle en portant son attention sur le profil, bras et jambe, de la personne photographiée et les franges de sa robe. C'est l'inscription sur le vêtement qui donne son titre au dessin. En arrière-plan, le contexte de la scène s'évapore et donne au sujet des contours flous, semblables à ceux de la photographie.

Dans Hot dog, Mireille Blanc dessine au fusain un pain vidé de son contenu en adoptant une vue plongeante sur son sujet. L'artiste s'amuse avec nos repères mémoriels en choisissant un titre qui dévoile la nature de l'aliment pourtant absent dans son dessin. Par le choix du cadrage, elle renforce cette idée d'étrangeté et brouille les repères du regardeur.

FRAC Auvergne collection

Sitcom is part of a group of paintings produced from photographs of sweat-shirts. Very typical of her work, the artist transforms the picture by playing on the scale ratio to provide a different angle. By the inclination of the focal length towards a close perspective and by enlarging the picture, Mireille Blanc subtly fades the subject out of the image, and constructs a filter between the artwork and the one who is looking at it. By blurring the inscription and the image's context, often old-fashion and kitsch, she focuses on the vagueness of the elements treated and plays on the enigmatic nature of subjects she encounters.

Artothèque Grand-Quevilly collection

Sweatshirt (bouée) is part of a group of paintings produced from photographs of sweat-shirts. Very typical of her work, the artist transforms the picture by playing on the scale ratio to provide a different angle. By the inclination of the focal length towards a close perspective and by enlarging the picture, Mireille Blanc subtly fades the subject out of the image, and constructs a filter between the artwork and the one who is looking at it. By blurring the inscription and the image's context, often old-fashion and kitsch, she focuses on the vagueness of the elements treated and plays on the enigmatic nature of subjects she encounters.

Petit sweat bleu is part of a group of paintings produced from photographs of sweat-shirts. Very typical of her work, the artist transforms the picture by playing on the scale ratio to provide a different angle. By the inclination of the focal length towards a close perspective and by enlarging the picture, Mireille Blanc subtly fades the subject out of the image, and constructs a filter between the artwork and the one who is looking at it. By blurring the inscription and the image's context, often old-fashion and kitsch, she focuses on the vagueness of the elements treated and plays on the enigmatic nature of subjects she encounters.

In Fleur 1, Mireille Blanc expresses a particular interest in the flower pattern and transforms it in an indirect manner. From the back of canvas representing a rose, she skews all the more the image, and highlights this work of transformations in her painting. In this way, the artist conceives an artwork pointing a new reality, with the presence of black and white traces which blur the primary subject.

For Le gâteau de larmes, Mireille Blanc is inspired by a banal photograph of a birthday meal that she reframes to sublimate the cake motif and make the protagonists of the scene disappear. The dessert is magnified by the flash of the camera and the charcoal that allows the play of light and shadow. The sculptural form of the cake and its aluminum plate, bordering on kitsch, thus become properly pictorial subjects.

In Le gâteau de S., the subject is double and imposes itself on Mireille Blanc in an attraction/repulsion relationship. The perception of the birthday cake that has been started, is parasitized by the spray shots projected onto the photograph as well as by its tight framing. The artist plays on blurring the viewer's landmarks, torn between the sensation of immediate proximity to the subject without being able to determine whether it is a pictorial representation of a cake or a painting of a cake photograph.

In Les fleurs, Mireille Blanc expresses a particular interest in the flower pattern and transforms it in an indirect manner. From a geranium crate photograph, she plays on scale ratio in order to tend toward subject's abstraction. The use of black and white contributes to reinforce the loss of viewer's landmarks, and to dissolve the perception of drawing's context.

The drawing entitled Piqué has been produced from a photograph of a damaged mirror, reflecting a draped bed in the background. Very typical of Mireille Blanc's work on the research of subject's abstraction, this drawing emphasizes on the details, notably with the mirror's deterioration marks which interrogate the viewer's perception. By using the black and white, modifying scale ratio and emphasizing on the details, the artist blurs the artwork's context and creates and filter between the drawing and the one who is looking at it.

This artwork has been produced from a photograph of a crib mobile representing midgets suspended in the air. Through insisting on the details, and notably by transcribing the mobile movement while playing of scale ratio, Mireille Blanc seeks to lose the primary subject in the patterns she draws. In addition to this process, the use of charcoal and consequently of black and white supports the research of subject?s abstraction by blurring the artwork?s context.

The artwork Cirque comes from a black and white photograph of a television displaying a circus scene, and on which a model ship is disposed. This work demonstrates the instinctive nature of the relation that the artist maintains with her subjects’ choices. Mireille Blanc seeks to transcribe the details of image construction to tend towards the loss of the primary subject and to display a new reality.