Petrus De Man

«Before, the trees were people like us»

June 11th - july 18th 2009

 
Monumental, rude, jerky and spasmodic, its characteristics define the house as an islet of alienation.  A little man inhabits the rudimentary, lopsided polyhedron which is divided into sections, or holds it at arm’s length, uncertain as to what to do with it.  Which one contains the other?  Too big for his tight-fitting suit, his “environment”, our little man scrunches up, feels the pressure of the walls, bursts forth from them, makes them his own.  All things in this singular universe—man-child, home-cage, trees, flowers and sun, all solidified—share the same imperfect, wide open geometry with broken corners.  Infantile, sorrowful, pathetic, from the very beginning Petrus De Man’s representations oscillate between the damaging of the Cycladic idol.

Square and cylindrical forms bloom, trees with trunks as thick as flower pots hold out their arms of cast iron.  The stroke is brutal, powerful, as though the artist had initially forged the steel, interiorizing the lesson of the hard lines born of the shock of matter and elements.  And yet, of metal, Petrus knows only the plaque for engraving, the rudimentary and difficult point and the drawing that is the result, charcoal, pastel, infused with anger and anguish.  An abrupt drawing, broken and yet energetic, whose emotional power—Petrus always knew it—must be preserved at all costs.                                             

Histoire d'Elles
June 11th - juillet 18th 2009

Entitled "Histoire d'elles" the exhibition reveals how these artists develop a singular, feminine and intimate universe in their work.        
Christine Sefolosha’s paintings evoke the troubling, irrational world of childhood fairy tales, populated with disquietingly strange animals.  The question of the body dominates Louise Giamari’s sculptures, the deformations, alterations, and transformations she imagines inspiring us to consider the idea of corporal modification.  Lydie Arickx’s archaic figures, with their sediments of colour, suggest the same deconstruction of the representation of the body.     Sophie Rocco’s phantom-like faces emerging from colour somehow echo an intimate feeling of vulnerability.  And Emmanuelle Renard blends the imaginary, the dreamlike, and the real upon her canvas to give form to everyday visions that are at once poetic and tragic.             
Histoire d'elles:  Eight artists who translate their conception of the world by deliberately placing their art in intimate territory.            
Lydie  A r i c k x                   
Louise G i a m a r i
Emmanuelle  R e n a r d           
Sophie  R o c c o
Christine S e f o l o s h a
Vanessa F a n u e l e
Julie L o r i n e t
Sylvia R e y f t m a n n

Artists