Opening on Thursday 13 March from 6 p.m.

On the occasion of this “Saison du dessin” in Paris, Polad-Hardouin gallery presents a selection of recent works by Ayako David-Kawauchi, Caroline Demangel and Daphné Chevallereau. The display is designed as three personal exhibitions, each with its own space, so as to enhance their unique features.

Ayako-David Kawauchi - Livre à vivre

“Livre à vivre” (a book to live in) is the title of the series of sketches presented by Japanese artist Ayako David-Kawauchi. Kawauchi, who has been living in France for 25 years, plays with her double culture and with words. The Japanese language makes no distinction between the sounds B and V, or between L and R. This phonetic inversion therefore produces the sounds Libre (free) and Bible. Under the auspices of these four words, her drawings aim to be, first and foremost, a celebration of life and a call to appreciate its fleeting moments.

For some time now, the Book has been the source from which Kawauchi has been drawing inspiration for her characters (Mary Magdalene in particular) and emblematic tales (the Last Supper), which she reinterprets through her own models, each incarnating an aspect of life and of its ambivalence. Her drawings occupy the blank space of the paper through a sober combination of charcoal, black chalk and gesso. Serene faces, fragment of bodies conveying a sense of unfinishedness dwell in these drawings and invite us to reflect upon the universal character of some Biblical episodes. Portraits of children and adolescents with half-closed eyes counterpoint the series to celebrate, in their own way, the promises of a blossoming existence.

Ayako David-Kawauchi was born in the prefecture of Ehime, in Japan. After studying fine arts and design in Tokyo, she attended classes at ENSAD in Paris, where she currently lives and works. She started her career as a textile designer, then gradually shifted to drawing, to which she dedicates herself full-time since 2005. She is regularly exhibited in France (at the galleries Plume, GNG, Christine Phal and at the Drawing Now salon in Paris) and abroad (gallery C, Neuchâtel, Ultra 2, Tokyo Art Fair). This is her third exhibition at the gallery Polad-Hardouin, which represents her since 2012.

Caroline Demangel - Souffle

As a self-taught artist, drawing came into Caroline Demangel's life, like this sudden and obvious encounters. “In the following months, she writes, I kept isolating myself to reproduce visions that I didn’t even imagine a moment before. […] It was the unfolding, the hatching of something that I am still exploring at the moment”. 

Multi-faceted characters emerge from the circular movements of her pencil, jostled by the energetic and fragile strokes of pastel, in a collision of violent and contradictory emotions. Duplications, juxtapositions, crossing-outs and tint areas constitute the elements of her syntax. In the colourful proliferation of her drawings, signs and words are an integral part of the composition and loudly express the urges of anger, anguish, and desire.

Born in 1982, Caroline Demangel has been exhibiting her sketches for several years, first at the Christophe Gaillard gallery in Paris, and especially in Lyon at the Chartier gallery. Since 2012, she is represented by the gallery Polad-Hardouin.

Daphné Chevallereau - Terre de lune (space 2)

As if her first name, straight out of a tale by Ovid, already carried within itself what was to become her universe, Daphné Chevallereau’s drawings are placed under the signs of love and metamorphoses. “Recurring images pour out into my drawings like a waterfall coming from one single source: the source of love. Indeed, drawing and painting are acts of love”, she writes. Spiritual and carnal love are intertwined in her enigmatic landscapes, under the stare of restless stars.

The characters that dwell in her drawings radiate the emotions that run through them. In a work composed of four adjoined pieces of paper, a man with an erection and a woman of whom only the hair and the tongue can be seen, bath in the light of a changing sky. Simultaneously glowing and cold, the sky seems to reflect the ambiguity of their relationship. An owl, a devil’s mask, a multi-coloured snake and a girl hanging from her feet add to the mystery of the scene. The hand is another leitmotiv of her drawings: the hand that embraces, clasps and sometimes chokes. The monotype technique allows the incursion of accidents into a carefully controlled drawing, which combines dry and wet elements. Typographic ink, watercolour and gouache are confronted with dry and oily pastels to create a clashing pictorial dynamics that accompanies the movement of these worlds charged with multiple meanings.

Born in 1988 in Nîmes, Daphné Chevallereau graduated from the Ecole Nationale Supérieure of Bourges. In 2013, after being selected for the 17th edition of the Prix Marin, she presented a large drawing composed of several pieces of paper. Since 2009, she took part in several collective exhibitions at the gallery Polad-Hardouin. This is her first personal exhibition supported by CNAP.