Landscapes seen from the train

Technique: digital photo on canvas, embroidery.
Exhibition available in several formats.

"...in its transparency the landscape reveals itself. From a blurred gray like Gerhard Richter, it suddenly becomes more precise, it finally appears, in its nuances. One would think it was drawn in pencil, but it is studded with embroidery. Along the lines of fabric that seem like a pencil, the image emerges. A blurred photograph becomes a dense landscape (...)"

It was with these dual-status images that Aurélie Mathigot began her journey as a visual artist. While she has now moved on to other mediums, such as crochet, she remains faithful to this primary practice that continues to haunt her. She seizes modest images, hardly meant to be preserved, to transcend them, just as Penelope transcended the passing of time. It is no coincidence that this artist likes to say that video, her original body, disappointed her and made her suffer: it is something else in the image that she seeks.

"In the film, randomness is not allowed," she recalls. "It is the regret of a past present, in which it reinscribes us. Photography, on the contrary, truly freezes the present. And embroidery fixes it, like a varnish whose glazes awaken forgotten underlying layers. It also allows imperfection, by inviting the hand to enter into action (…)"

From a seaside stroll, a trip to Japan, a mountain hike, Aurélie Mathigot returns with an inert material, photographs gently awakened by silk thread. Or sometimes pearls, more furiously; even sequins. But the interventions are generally discreet, the play of volumes clear but humble. At first glance, we just suspect that something is wrong with the image, without really understanding what.
You have to get close, and put your body into play, for the material to reveal itself. The artist can take hold of cities, which are already embroideries in themselves, with their urban patterns; or, in another series, of an abandoned place, with its dilapidated windows, its ugly trees, its mismatched wallpapers. There, in this disused sanatorium, she sublimates decrepitude.

Excerpts from a text by Emmanuelle Lequeux, journalist and art critic - 2015