Under your spell
Tiffany Bouelle
From October 10 to November 2, 2024
March 2024 - "It's my party, and I'll cry if I want to." For the first time, her bearings are broken and give way to a memory almost erased by the conventions of age. The subject resurfaces in the form of a fracture. Now floating, in black and white, it demands a new place in Tiffany Bouelle's work.
With a single stroke—the one inherited from her grandfather, a master of Japanese calligraphy—the artist continues to develop this technique that is unique to her. After a period of abstraction, she begins a gradual return to figuration, thus finding an anchor, a connection to herself. A transition takes place, a movement oscillating between a tangible world and a more introspective universe.
The subjects also parade in color, sometimes marked by reminiscences of childhood, these privileged places of reverie always tinged with a sweet melancholy. Gaston Bachelard evokes on this subject: "What a privilege of depth there is in the reveries of the child! Happy the child who has possessed, truly possessed, his solitudes!"
This retreat towards a tender age, towards the hidden corners of memory, forges the essence of his creation: a sequential sequence where each scene is a fragment of history. More than simple outlines, these narrative frames allow the artist to weave his own story through his work. The drawing in the center then becomes a facade, behind which a more intimate, invisible work is hidden, which only the title partially reveals.
It is no longer just the mystery of the images that is at stake, but that of the artist herself. As she once collected the confidences of her friends, she now reveals her own, touching on a radical intimacy.
Tiffany Bouelle lets us glimpse a part of her story, without ever telling everything. The painting "Noyer le poisson pour un bouquet de larmes" is the perfect example. This expression evokes the idea of diverting attention to hide a truth. Here, the work leads us to a central point, where a fish seems drowned in a whirlwind of debris, however, behind this apparent chaos, a hidden work remains. Around this scene, the fragments dance like stars in orbit, and the frame evokes a chessboard, reminding us that "the games are done", reinforcing this feeling of inevitability.
In the staging of her works, this notion of passage, of opening, is central. The paintings are not limited to the frames, but extend beyond, embodying themselves on the walls, marrying the forms of the space. The gallery itself, named 'PorteB,' suggests this idea of threshold. It becomes a passage to Tiffany Bouelle's inner universe, a place where art escapes its limits to invite the viewer to cross an invisible border.
In the intimacy of the studio, there is a space of silence and retreat. It is in this isolation that the works are born, each painting being an open door to his inner world. Secrecy touches the very essence of our being. It is not meant for display, but is the source of our creativity and our ability to dream.
Thus, in each of the artist's pieces, a secret persists, both a richness and a mystery,
that must be preserved. Beneath the surface of shapes and colors, something remains, hidden but present, inviting the viewer to lose themselves in the meanders of what will never be fully revealed.
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Elise ROCHE (Director of projects and exhibitions at HM Conseils)
