Nella galleria parigina Ceysson & Bénétière dal 5 dicembre 2024 al 25 gennaio 2025 verranno esposte le ultime opere realizzate da Claire Chesnier. Si tratta di composizioni astratte che si distinguono per il loro approccio unico al lavoro mediante il ricorso al colore. Attraverso un protocollo sviluppato nel corso degli anni, l’artista modella toni, sfumature e oscillazioni dei suoi pezzi. «Claire Chesnier mantiene una distanza, osserva lo scarto – ha osservato la scrittrice francese Maylis de Kerangal lo scorso settembre -, la sua voce risuona nel silenzio, chiara, misurata. In questo modo, rispecchia la sua pittura, che, a sua volta, gioca nel bianco della pagina, facendosi strada senza sforzo, fondendosi con la carta nella striatura di una scia, nella sinuosità di un flusso, nella grana di un vapore».
Ceysson & Bénétière Gallery in Paris will present the latest works of Claire Chesnier from December 5, 2024, to January 25, 2025. Her abstract compositions are distinguished by her unique approach to working with color.
LATEST WORKS OF CLAIRE CHESNIER
Through a protocol she has developed over the years, the artist shapes the tones, gradients, and oscillations in her pieces. “Claire Chesnier maintains a distance, observing the gap; her voice resonates in the silence—clear, measured. In this way, she mirrors her painting, which, in turn, plays within the white of the page, making its way effortlessly, merging with the paper in the striation of a trail, the sinuosity of a flow, the grain of a vapor.” Maylis de Kerangal, September 2024. No matter how much I move to the side, away from these images and back again, I cannot decide whether they are monochromatic variations of a single pigment or polychromatic hues that dilute, generate and scatter several others, and this undecidable problem offers a kind of revelation: there is no more hue, no more tint, the definition of chromatic tonality is transcended, there is only color, color that passes before me and meets me, that passes over the large sheets of paper, gliding, penetrating them, metamorphic without mutating, evolving. I perceive it as full and slow, expansive, and at the same time on the verge of disappearing, already ghostly.
REMAINS AT A DISTANCE, OBSERVING THE EMPTINESS
What happens in this use of color, in this oscillation that goes from the density of the pigment to a luminous cloud of a halo, leads to a shift to a different way of seeing, to the acceptance of detachment, of the disappearance of forms but also to the acceptance of undecidability, indeterminacy, unpredictability. My intuition tells me that the image is there, in the radiant thickness of this floating line, at this porous edge, at this changeable, versatile border between abstraction — I stand before movements, forces, impulses, currents, presences — and figuration — I stand before landscapes, clearings, skies, dawns, fires, perhaps twilights, I stand before the dew of a winter meadow, condensation in a whisky glass, an evening sea, a cloudy sky, a ghostly love. I stand before absence, before something that is happening and that I do not know. What happens to us when we disappear. Disappearance. Claire Chesnier remains at a distance, observing the emptiness, her language plays in the silence, clear, waiting, while she is a replica of her color, which enters into the whiteness of the paper, carrying it without forcing it, becoming one with the paper in the streaks that remain, the smoothness of a current, the suggestion of evaporation.
PORTRAIT, SELF-PORTRAIT…
We look, and it is like a conversation, like taking up a language: our eyes are our mouths, our movements are like sentences, and soon only time is left — the time of painting, which is the time of looking… When does the word “patience” come to my mind? I begin to move and the pictures vibrate around us, fluttering in chromatic instability, almost the same, essentially the same, in this vertical format that is proportional to the body, or rather to the body of the artist, as she writes in Fragments d’une déposition: «My height, my shoulder, the extent and fullness of my arm 1 movements correspond to the dimensions of the paper. I cut it to my size—the size of a woman. The horizon of the frame is thus drawn in this perceived space, in my scale…» Images that suddenly seem to encompass her completely, to regain their character of portraits — self-portraits. I hear the word patience in this endless movement back to the paper, this bending of the upper body, this tension in the neck, this stretching of the arm, this letting go of the wrist. A subterranean tension that responds to the body, to pain, but also to pleasure. That repeats, starts again, returns, works to elicit meaning from the image, to reduce its complexity, to distill the smallest, most insignificant grain, in an effort to cancel out any motif, any intentionality. This persistence in painting. Patience as insistence, as resistance. Patience, silent and rebellious.
ACCEPTIT IT WITHOUT HESITATION
«When I think about it, I probably felt this word in connection with that of confidence, of trust, which comes to mind at the same time. Having confidence in painting, relying on it, completely, accepting it without hesitation; letting go of control and reaffirming one’s instinct… And no doubt I understand it, this word, through that of alliance, which is also in my head. Patience in alliance with time, endurance. A willingness to merge with the flow of life, to make a pact with time, to desire what is to come — amor fati. That crosses landscapes, breathes, travels far. The sheets of paper are suspended, meaning is suspended, language is suspended, time is suspended, and the city pulsates around us as I discover this activation of abandonment — the impossible event that took place here. A painting of patience». (Maylis de Kerangal, September 2024, translated from French by Laurie Hurwitz)
From a text by Maylis de Kerangal in Claire Chesnier (Paris: JBE Books, November 2024) Co-published by Ceysson & Bénétière, Gallery THE PILL, Pascaline Mulliez Endowment Fund, L’ahah and CCC-OD, with the support of ADAGP
INFO
Claire Chesnier
A rose, a dewdrop, a sunset
December 5, 2024 – January 25, 2025
Opening Thursday 5 december at 6 p.m.
Galerie Ceysson & Bénétière
23, rue du Renard 75004 Paris
