Galeristes

Dans la série Puce et Zig, Valérie Mréjen reprend des planches de la bande dessinée inventée par Alain Saint-Ogan et Greg en 1925 pour y changer les dialogues et créer ainsi de nouvelles histoires en lien avec des situations du milieu artistique. Entre auto-dérision sur le milieu de l'art et réminiscences de souvenirs d'enfance, l'artiste utilise le processus fictionnel pour détourner avec humour des histoires initialement destinées aux enfants.

Birds are a recurrent pattern in Chourouk Hriech's work, symbolizing the spiritual and realisation of the drawing as a trajectory. Working exclusively in black and white, the artist chooses to draw these dazzling and phantasmatic animals in colour for the first time. Confronted to the loss of species, she intends to change her artistic habits to emphasize on the emergency of their situation.

Birds are a recurrent pattern in Chourouk Hriech's work, symbolizing the spiritual and realisation of the drawing as a trajectory. Working exclusively in black and white, the artist chooses to draw these dazzling and phantasmatic animals in colour for the first time. Confronted to the loss of species, she intends to change her artistic habits to emphasize on the emergency of their situation.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Curtain #2 (performance project) is a photograph of a performance, in which the artist intervened retrospectively. It goes along with a performance and intervention series realized on the seaside, exploring gestures symbolic and the connection with reality. In this photograph, painted curtains come on the top of the represented action, creating the illusion, both symbolical and political, of opening or closing on the horizon.

Action II  presents in a conceptual and performative work, an absurd situation where a man is climbing a ladder placed on the floor. This situation, to all appearances humorous is intended to reveal the absurdity of a system constraining artists to immobility.
Nowadays named performances, this type of artwork was called actions, which has undeniably a more powerful political connotation.

À partir de ses souvenirs (images glanées sur Internet, séjours à l'étranger, environnement quotidien…), Yann Lacroix peint des paysages volontairement composites, habités de végétation exotique, de serres tropicales et de piscines, constitués de leur propre artificialité et vides de présence humaine mais dont la trace d'une histoire passée ou possible amène sensualité et vie : une réflexion sur les hétérotopies qui s'articule par le biais de ces lieux à la fois fantasmés et emprunts d'une poésie du quotidien comme des allégories de la peinture même.

In this drawing, Chourouk Hriech invents a floating world similar to Japanese landscapes, where vegetation, animals and geometrical shapes come together through a process of ornamentation akin to cave painting. Without representing them, she suggests through the lines, birds that are flying away. Hence, she creates a continuity between the kimono fabric, and the animal wings spread.

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.

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.

Dans la série Puce et Zig, Valérie Mréjen reprend des planches de la bande dessinée inventée par Alain Saint-Ogan et Greg en 1925 pour y changer les dialogues et créer ainsi de nouvelles histoires en lien avec des situations du milieu artistique. Entre auto-dérision sur le milieu de l'art et réminiscences de souvenirs d'enfance, l'artiste utilise le processus fictionnel pour détourner avec humour des histoires initialement destinées aux enfants.

Dans la série Puce et Zig, Valérie Mréjen reprend des planches de la bande dessinée inventée par Alain Saint-Ogan et Greg en 1925 pour y changer les dialogues et créer ainsi de nouvelles histoires en lien avec des situations du milieu artistique. Entre auto-dérision sur le milieu de l'art et réminiscences de souvenirs d'enfance, l'artiste utilise le processus fictionnel pour détourner avec humour des histoires initialement destinées aux enfants.

Dans la série Puce et Zig, Valérie Mréjen reprend des planches de la bande dessinée inventée par Alain Saint-Ogan et Greg en 1925 pour y changer les dialogues et créer ainsi de nouvelles histoires en lien avec des situations du milieu artistique. Entre auto-dérision sur le milieu de l'art et réminiscences de souvenirs d'enfance, l'artiste utilise le processus fictionnel pour détourner avec humour des histoires initialement destinées aux enfants.

Dans la série Puce et Zig, Valérie Mréjen reprend des planches de la bande dessinée inventée par Alain Saint-Ogan et Greg en 1925 pour y changer les dialogues et créer ainsi de nouvelles histoires en lien avec des situations du milieu artistique. Entre auto-dérision sur le milieu de l'art et réminiscences de souvenirs d'enfance, l'artiste utilise le processus fictionnel pour détourner avec humour des histoires initialement destinées aux enfants.

Dans la série Puce et Zig, Valérie Mréjen reprend des planches de la bande dessinée inventée par Alain Saint-Ogan et Greg en 1925 pour y changer les dialogues et créer ainsi de nouvelles histoires en lien avec des situations du milieu artistique. Entre auto-dérision sur le milieu de l'art et réminiscences de souvenirs d'enfance, l'artiste utilise le processus fictionnel pour détourner avec humour des histoires initialement destinées aux enfants.

Dans la série Puce et Zig, Valérie Mréjen reprend des planches de la bande dessinée inventée par Alain Saint-Ogan et Greg en 1925 pour y changer les dialogues et créer ainsi de nouvelles histoires en lien avec des situations du milieu artistique. Entre auto-dérision sur le milieu de l'art et réminiscences de souvenirs d'enfance, l'artiste utilise le processus fictionnel pour détourner avec humour des histoires initialement destinées aux enfants.

Dans la série Puce et Zig, Valérie Mréjen reprend des planches de la bande dessinée inventée par Alain Saint-Ogan et Greg en 1925 pour y changer les dialogues et créer ainsi de nouvelles histoires en lien avec des situations du milieu artistique. Entre auto-dérision sur le milieu de l’art et réminiscences de souvenirs d’enfance, l’artiste utilise le processus fictionnel pour détourner avec humour des histoires initialement destinées aux enfants.

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.

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.

In this series, Valérie Mréjen has enlarged details of postcards from the Archives of the city of Vienna. From these views with one or more characters, she proposes short fictional narratives that are inspired by the images. She rethinks their contexts, sometimes amusing, sensitive or disenchanted. Creating a link between image and narrative, Valérie Mréjen gives new life to these postcards, recalling their primary function as a medium for epistolary exchanges.

Centre d'art contemporain La Halle des bouchers Production

Chourouk Hriech visited Tel Aviv during her exhibition in the Centre for Contemporary Art in 2018. As often during her journey abroad, the artist drew a series entitled ?Tel Aviv?s lines? depicting her discoveries and exploration of the city in black and white. The brand-new buildings stand alongside the dilapidated ones, highlighting the continual transformation of the space. These drawings allude to Mediterranean architectures, as well as Bauhaus influences and the big Californian streets with the play of light and shade. In this architectural panorama, Chourouk Hriech emphasizes on the contrast between the hard stroke of the buildings and the disordered vegetation.

Chourouk Hriech visited Tel Aviv during her exhibition in the Centre for Contemporary Art in 2018. As often during her journey abroad, the artist drew a series entitled ?Tel Aviv?s lines? depicting her discoveries and exploration of the city in black and white. The brand-new buildings stand alongside the dilapidated ones, highlighting the continual transformation of the space. These drawings allude to Mediterranean architectures, as well as Bauhaus influences and the big Californian streets with the play of light and shade. In this architectural panorama, Chourouk Hriech emphasizes on the contrast between the hard stroke of the buildings and the disordered vegetation.
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Chourouk Hriech visited Tel Aviv during her exhibition in the Centre for Contemporary Art in 2018. As often during her journey abroad, the artist drew a series entitled Tel Aviv's lines depicting her discoveries and exploration of the city in black and white. The brand-new buildings stand alongside the dilapidated ones, highlighting the continual transformation of the space. These drawings allude to Mediterranean architectures, as well as Bauhaus influences and the big Californian streets with the play of light and shade. In this architectural panorama, Chourouk Hriech emphasizes on the contrast between the hard stroke of the buildings and the disordered vegetation.

Chourouk Hriech visited Tel Aviv during her exhibition in the Centre for Contemporary Art in 2018. As often during her journey abroad, the artist drew a series entitled ?Tel Aviv?s lines? depicting her discoveries and exploration of the city in black and white. The brand-new buildings stand alongside the dilapidated ones, highlighting the continual transformation of the space. These drawings allude to Mediterranean architectures, as well as Bauhaus influences and the big Californian streets with the play of light and shade. In this architectural panorama, Chourouk Hriech emphasizes on the contrast between the hard stroke of the buildings and the disordered vegetation.

N38W084 highlights patterns from topographic surveys, here those of a vast american territory. In the continuity of the Mille Mississipi series, the processing of the figures obtained and the work of color reveal a multitude of hydrographic networks of streams, rivers, metaphors or pretexts to dream in front of figures that become trees, neurological connections, plants or electrical forms...

Each Diagram offers the story of a selected dream made by the artist, realised on a notebook page. By removing the ribbon from a typewriter, the paper has been carved to create the letters and the words which make these scripts visible for our eyes.


Text

Dans un pays d'Amérique du sud se trouve un site
naturel exceptionnel.
Au milieu de montagnes recouvertes par la jungle
se dresse une gigantesque falaise. Cet éperon
rocheux domine une large vallée.

Il est formé par une grande arche dont la partie
supérieure est parfaitement plane. A l'extrémité
de celle-ci se trouve un énorme bloc de roche
en forme de triangle, en équilibre au-dessus du
vide. Il semble prêt à se détacher à tout
instant.L'arche forme comme deux immenses doigts
de pierre, l'empêchant de basculer.

J'apprends alors que les habitants de ces
montagnes l'appellent :
« La table de Dieu »

Grandmas is a series of drawings inspired by product labels whose brand relates to a family member.  It was during a residency in California, that Valérie Mréjen began collecting these labels: grandmothers, uncles, aunts, it is a whole "reconstituted family" that we find in these nostalgic drawings, like so many warm ghosts.

In this series, Valérie Mréjen has enlarged details of postcards from the Archives of the City of Vienna. Based on these views with one or more characters, she proposes short fictional narratives that draw inspiration from the images by rethinking their contexts, sometimes amusing, sometimes sensitive or disenchanted. Creating a link between image and narrative, she brings these postcards back to life, recalling their primary function as a medium for epistolary exchanges.

Exhibition :
- LISTE ROSE (1997-2017), Editions Dilecta, Paris, France, février 2018

Massinissa Selmani's drawings are inspired by political news, especially from cut-outs of the press that he has been collecting for many years. By confronting and juxtaposing these elements without logical coherence, the artist creates enigmatic and ambiguous scenes, underlining the ironic, even tragic character of the absurd and strange situations represented in his drawings.

Dans ces dessins, Chourouk Hriech représente des lieux où se mêlent des éléments architecturaux et végétaux appelant à une grande sérénité, comme des endroits idylliques du quotidien. Comme souvent dans sa pratique elle mêle des éléments réels desquels elle s'inspire lors d'un voyage et des éléments imaginaires et fantasmés. Dans ces intérieurs dessinés en noir et blanc, chaque ouverture sur le dehors laisse apparaître des paysages profonds, composés d'une nature verdoyante. Ainsi, elle superpose des architectures urbaines, ici inspirées de Madrid (une salle du Palais de l'Alcazar, une ruelle encombrée,...), et des horizons bucoliques impossibles. De cette manière, elle installe un jeu dans la perspective qui invite à une ouverture, un possible, une nouvelle façon de concevoir l'espace pour aller vers un monde rêvé.

The Labyrinth photographs, from the Mirror series, capture an intervention on the seaside, and act as a philosophical reflection around the concept of reality. Like a labyrinth, this notion of reality can take a multitude of paths; there is a global picture of reality in accordance with a supposedly established definition, becoming nevertheless more and more complex and elusive as soon as our common conventions are reconsidered, calling into question its very existence.

The "Masks" series  is marked by a strong political dimension, staging symbolically the constraints generated against Romanian intellectuals in times of dictatorship, especially artists.
Mask # 2 suggests a reflection about the final image, here by the marks left on the skin after the removal of a tightly wrapped string. This political work, though without being a program of dissidence, evokes the muzzling, the oppression undergone during a period of censorship and extreme surveillance.

The six drawings composing this series are testimonies of Chourouk Hriech explorations in the Cité Frugès. Located in Bordeaux, this estate was conceived by Le Corbusier to accommodate workers from a factory nearby. The architecture is typical of his reflections on urbanism: lines are straight, brutal, and the housing is imagined in an almost mathematical manner. Despite Chourouk Hriech’s faithful representation of the buildings' geometry, the artist draws the architecture as a component of its environment. In these drawings, the hard lines of Le Corbusier’s concrete mix with the gentle curves of vegetation. Urban elements coexist in harmony with natural elements.

With these series of sculptures, Julien Discrit develops research where the materials and forms are intimately intertwined. He pursues two reflections very important in his work: one on the minerals, crystals and stones, and another on the spatial, geological and temporal relationship between humankind and its environment. Like future fossils, these sculptures of human hands holding rocks represent an almost archaic gesture of gripping. In a snapshot, they propose a "becoming stone" that plays with both materials - organic and mineral mixed together in yet another piece made of reconstituted stone - but also with artistic and historical practices in the sense of inventing a contemporary aesthetic from an artificial archaeological ruin. It thus reveals the aesthetic forms already given in our environment like these stones which are in themselves finished sculptural forms.

Massinissa Selmani's drawings are inspired by political news, especially from cut-outs of the press that he has been collecting for many years. By confronting and juxtaposing these elements without logical coherence, the artist creates enigmatic and ambiguous scenes, underlining the ironic, even tragic character of the absurd and strange situations represented in his drawings.

Massinissa Selmani's drawings are inspired by political news, especially from cut-outs of the press that he has been collecting for many years. By confronting and juxtaposing these elements without logical coherence, the artist creates enigmatic and ambiguous scenes, underlining the ironic, even tragic character of the absurd and strange situations represented in his drawings.

Through her series Les puits du ciel, Chourouk Hriech continues her exploration of drawing through the use of vases, whose shapes refer to ancient times. Within these everyday objects, she draws birds, which she considers as allegories of spirituality, as manifestations of an endless and inaccessible 'elsewhere'. By opening the vase, the artist overturns realities and invites us to discover an imaginary ecosystem. She twists the initial function of the objects to explore new possibilities. The artist creates a paradox, reflected by the oxymoron in the title: the vases shelter another sky and the hollow space becomes infinite.
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