THE ART & MATIÈRE CONTEMPORARY ART FAIR – FLORENCE LEMIEGRE GUEST OF HONOR SCULPTURE – Maisse – Île-de-France region.

• January 27 to February 4, 2024

• Opening on Saturday, January 27, 6pm-9pm.

• Vernissages and cultural festivities at all event sites.

From January 27 to February 4, 2024, the Art & Matière contemporary art fair Art & Matière show presents the creations of a hundred artists, in four towns in southern Essonne: The “Art et Matière” show is the cultural event of the autumn in southern Essonne. It features some one hundred artists, spread over four exhibition venues in the communes of southern Essonne – Maisse, Gironville, Boigneville and Vayres sur Essonne.

This 48th edition of the Salon Art & Matière, whose guests of honour are ceramic sculptor Florence Lemiegre and painter Jean-François Larrieu, invites us to observe nature and perceive biodiversity in a sensitive way. By discovering the flamboyant imaginary materials and vibrant colors revealed by the work of these two committed artists, the spectator finds himself carried away in an immersive adventure of total reconnection with nature.

The Maisse Cultural Center welcomes the works of Florence Lemiegre. In honor of this invitation, the sculptor has chosen to present an anthology of some fifteen of her creations from her “Noli me tangere” and “Culbutos Serendipity” universes.

The artist explains: “The world of Noli me tangere allows him to initiate a dialogue on biodiversity and our relationship with nature. It crystallizes the unspeakable beauty all at once dreamlike and powerful of our planet. Beauty that nonetheless conceals impalpable wounds and cracks. From the bowels of these sculptures, tiny vibrations and oscillations sometimes escape. Like a silent, almost interior melody, they are akin to imperceptible breaths: the earthenware or stoneware work then seems to come to life. Testifying to the fertility but also to the vulnerabilitý of our earth and its oceans, it ultimately proposes to tell us a story. Undoubtedly one in which nature regains its rights and the balance of its ecosystems as a whole.”

Through entwined, imprisoned drapes, coral-like plant and organic forms, interlocking lamellae and chiselled lace, the sculptor constrains the material, pushing it to extremes. She imposes “unnatural” paths on it. With the extreme delicacy of its earthen sheets, its numerous cavities where emptiness reigns, its intertwined paths, the piece is on the verge of cracking, breaking or drying out too quickly at every stage of its creation. In this kind of traumatic state, the earth will gradually accept the inevitable changes, transitory or otherwise, that it imposes on it. The dynamic process is underway, and the sculpture comes to life. The work seems to have found́ its own equilibrium and reveals itself to be airy and light. It attempts to reveal imperceptible, impalpable cracks and wounds. The result is often a mysterious beautý unspeakable, fragile and violent at the same time.

The “Noli me tangere” works are committed to the protection of nature, and more specifically to the fragility of our oceans. With her hands and her sensitivitý, the artist explores the wounds at the heart of our planet’s flesh and symbolically denounces the decline of oceanic health: Sea and clay earth find correspondences and keep the imprints of traumas and aggressions suffered.

The “Culbutos Serendipity“, with their clean lines and shapes, sway, swing and hesitate before finding an anchoring point. Through these sculptures, Florence Lemiegre evokes stabilitý and instabilitý, induces strength and fragilitý, the better to highlight the dualitý inherent in our wounds, as in our rebirths. These works are also allegorical, as a symbolic graphic representation of our potential for resilience.

The question of balance and imbalance is inseparable from all Florence Lemiegre’s work. She connects each of her universes with a common thread through a variety of explorations in which matter gives life to emotional vibrations. Each of her creations is the result of a search for equivalence, contrasting materials and a balance between sculptural and color values. Indeed, his works are punctuated by a profusion of cheerful, dynamic colors, contrasting smoky blacks with shimmering, vibrant glazes. This palette of a thousand nuances leaves the imprint of a spontaneous pictorial expression, carried by the free gestures of enamel brushstrokes.

President of Art et Matière: painter Thierry Citron

Vice-President: sculptor and collagist Françoise Frugier

Salon Art & Matière

Center culturel Robert Dumas,

Rue de la République, 91720 Maisse

Opening hours: Monday to Saturday 2.30 pm to 7 pm and Sundays 10 am to 12 pm and 2.30 pm to 7 pm.