Cécile Vernant unfolds her islander world over 150m2. Paintings, drawings, photographs and ceramics interact like an exquisite corpse or a whole dorica castra. Martinique (FWI), where she grew up, is the very heart of her work.
The artist is guided by emotion, gesture, material, memory, light and the ardent desire to transcribe the immensity of her island small geography. There is no need for hyperboles and/or explanatory references : the power of the imagination and the evocation of childhood sensations are her compass.
© Cécile Vernant
"Man Mélé !", a solo exhibition by Cécile Vernant (Orangerie du Sénat)
The boundary between figuration and abstraction is tenuous, thus allowing great freedom of interpretation to those who look and, above all, the encounter with the Other. Her work is visual but also tactile, working clay with objects diverted from their functions (volcanic rocks, bolts, sewing materials, manganese, etc.) according to the tropical seasons (dry season, off-season and rainy season).
Cécile Vernant also creates bridges with Japan, another island geography that she knows and which, according to her, has many points in common with Martinique (culture of cyclones and volcanoes, archipelagos, magical realism, etc.). She exclusively prints her photographs or her “Tirages Mutants" ("Mutant Prints”) on Japanese Fine Art Paper, thus revealing the softness or the soul of the textured paper.
“Man Mélé!” has several meanings in Creole. For this exhibition, the artist chose “I am bewitched”, as the beauty and richness of this island shake up and haunt those who tread its soil.
Martinique, a French West Indian Island, wich is moreover very aptly nicknamed: The island where we always come back...
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Translation from french to english.
