From May 11th to June 15th Mémoire de l'Avenir presents a solo exhibition by the visual artist Isabelle TERRISSE, titled: For a substance to have such an influence, does it must contain a spirit? *, a passage drawn from The Temptation by Gustave Flaubert's , in which the writer questions the power of representations and or exemplifications, through the figure of Saint-Antoine.
Isabelle TERRISSE invites us to question the power of concrete matters or forms, when they are made into art works, yet, offerings each the liberty of interpretation of her personal propositions. Both forms and matters have the power of transmission of tangible and intangible traces and memories, which is an essential stake of the artist's work.
The experimentation with various rough materials is an obsession in Isabelle TERRISSE process of work, escalating to a singular repertoire of forms, ideas, inventing varied languages by means of a rare sensibility; Re-appropriation of discarded, found, re-used materials; using traces, imprint, iconographies… various means that serve her work, in committed and engaged statements .
Starting with the one that arises to pay homage to the hand, to the act of "doing", to the creativity of the "spirit", of these of women and men, which we observe in her series "embrases" or "drapery". In these series she combines recovered textile pieces with casts of her own hands, or using diverted weavings to create “new” drapes / sculptures composed of an assemblies of old buttons.
Her strong commitment to the "Anonymous", those who have participated in the story of life, without being heroes, those who marked our path, without knowing, like those who sleep on our through away mattresses in the street…
The notion of sustainable development, in its full meaning(s) is the red thread in the work of Isabelle TERRISSE; particularly through the valorization of her “know-how” and her way to use common materials;like her very regular use of concrete. In these pieces, the artist points out to our actual hyper-urbanism, the loss of landmarks, the thinning of the boundaries between public space and private sphere.
In all her works, the artist combines contraries and antitheses, links paradoxical unions, plays on the ambivalence of materials, objects and forms to give us to see the dysfunctions and contradictions that characterize our contemporary societies.
Through the imprint, whether photographic or corporal (moulding), or the use of pre-existing materials, Isabelle TERRISSE also questions the notion of trace left by Human, by associating the desire for immortality, facing the inexorable ephemeral.
Through an assembly of figurative elements, the artist proposes artworks-concept that open to tangible, philosophical, ethical, societal and political questions that touch both; the intimate and the living together.
By Marie-Cécile BERDAGUER & Margalit BERRIET
**So that matter has so much power, it must contain a spirit" - The temptation of Saint Anthony, Gustave Flaubert, 1874 // « Pour que de la matière ait tant de pouvoir, il faut qu’elle contienne un esprit » - La tentation de Saint-Antoine, Gustave flaubert, 1874