IMPRESSIONS
Marion Charlet
Opening reception: Saturday, 9 September from 5 to 8pm
Exhibition: September 9 – October 31, 2017
Press and events
MARION CHARLET
IMPRESSIONS
Exhibition : 9 September – 31 October, 2017
Opening : Saturday September 9th, 2017
With her new series of paintings – Inner Landscapes – Marion Charlet continues her artistic search, between real world and the realm of dreams. For her second solo show at Galerie Virginie Louvet, the artist exhibits large canvases in which we loose our points of reference and seem to disappear from the frame. By choosing to open the inner space of her paintings through these trompe l’œil windows – a process the artist often likes to resort to – she invites us to contemplate these enigmatic pieces, a blend of interior and exterior in a latent world that oscillate between a feeling of tranquility and confinement. In a sort of a mise en abyme, a cold architectural décor is set within a dream-like vision, this tableau within the tableau upsetting our perspective. To quote Chagall’s words, the artist’s work is “like a window through which one could fly away to another world.”
Marion Charlet uses a palette of bright, vibrant colors, with tones of pink and yellow and blue that lend these familiar spaces a surreal dimension. In spite of their tranquil appearance, a strange feeling of imprisonment also exudes from her paintings. The perspectives are there, but their break abruptly, and our gaze collides with these wall-like impenetrable vegetation-filled windows. In spite of brilliant colors, something strangely cold emanates from the paintings. Everyday items such as cushions seem to invite the viewer for a rest while the Orientalist touch would rather incite us to take off for far away lands. Doesn’t the opposition of these worlds – real and dream-like, serene and troubled, sedate and adventuresome – question our subconscious through this representation of other-worldliness? These dream-like representations are symbolized by imaginary worlds, landscapes fluctuating between vegetal and mineral, in a face-off between hardy nature and cool geometry.
The plurality of worlds depicted by the artist in her paintings immerses us in a binary realm amalgamating inside and outside, with an added time-space dimension. Our spirit seems trapped in this lopsided architecture. Low-angle paintings show apparently familiar, convivial set-ups until we realize there is no exit door. And then, as the viewer’s gaze roams between these closed-in, potentially oppressive constructions, sceneries, peaceful, luxuriant depictions of nature painted in gouache, suddenly emerge, transporting the viewer, invited again to contemplation and reverie.
There is a timeless quality to Marion Charlet’s paintings, blending the angularity of the structures and the luxuriance of nature. With it, the artist invites us for a journey into her world, a convergence of her own dreams and her own reality.
Marion Charlet was born in 1982 in Paris. She lives and works in Paris, France.
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Marion CHARLET
Born in 1982, Paris, France.
Lives and works in Brussels, Belgium.
SOLO SHOWS
2017 Galerie Virginie Louvet, France (september)
La Patinoire Royale, Brussels, Belgium
Peinture, Galerie d’art de Créteil, France
2015 As long As It Lasts, Galerie Virginie Louvet, Paris, France
2012 Peinture, Galerie d’art de Créteil, Créteil, France
2010 Happy Blue, Galerie Premier Regard, Paris, France
GROUP SHOWS
2017
Le vent souffle où il veut with Claire Chauvel, Marion Charlet, Marion Davout, Marie-Anita Gaube, Marine Joatton, Florence Reymond, Lise Roussel, Galerie Françoise Besson, Lyon, France
Drawing Now, Salon du Dessin Contemporain, Galerie Virginie Louvet, Paris, France
Peindre dit-elle, Chapitre 2, Musée des beaux-Arts de Dole, Dole, France
2016
Yia Art Fair, Brussels, Galerie Virginie Louvet, Brussels, Belgium
Les Maisons folles, Ronchin, France
3 collectionneurs, autrement #3, ETE 78, Brussels, Belgium
2015
Group show curated by Julie Crenn, Galerie Frédéric Lacroix, Paris, France
Le Kabinet du dessin, Brussels, Belgium
2014
Salon du dessin, centre culturel de la Madeleine, Lille, France
Overline III, prieuré Saint Nicolas, les Sables d’Olonne, France
Cosmic Players, Galerie Martine et Thibault de la Châtre, sur une proposition de Basserode, with Sandra Lorenzi, Elodie Fradet and Mengzhi Zheng, France
2013
Novembre à Vitry, Galerie Municipale Jean Collet, Vitry-sur-Seine, France
Génération Optimiste, Johnson & Johnson’s headoffice, Issy-les-Moulineaux, France
Le Jardin des délices, in collaboration with the Körper collectiv, le KABINET, Brussels, Belgium
Shipping Paradise, with the FrenchFries collectiv, Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris, France
2012
Novembre à Vitry, Galerie Municipale Jean Collet, Vitry-sur-Seine, France
Oui à la peinture/ Yes to painting, with Mireille Blanc, Nicolas Chardon, Mathieu Cherkit and Eva Nielsen, Maison Tajan, Paris, France
Un barrage contre le Pacifique, with Benjamin Bichard, Daniel Flammer, Laure Jullien and Pascale Laplace, atelier Km, Pantin, France
Tajan Aunction in favour of Monte-Carlo Red-Cross, with the support of Louis Vuitton Foundation, Monaco
2011
Premier Regard fête ses dix ans, with 50 artists of the Galerie Premier Regard,
Bastille Design Center, Paris, France
D’Après S. Vigny, with Béatrice Bailet, Emeline Giault and Justyna Ptak, Galerie Sintitulo, Mougins, France
Les Fous, engraving exhibition at the Carré Saint Lazare, Paris, France
2009
Les traits noirs de Moo Chew WONG and his guests, Musée des Beaux Arts de Nice, Nice, France
Santé!, Galerie de la Marine et Galerie A, Nice, France
54ème Salon d’art contemporain de Montrouge, Pavillon Arson, Montrouge, France
2008
Oustide The Limits, Chelsea College of Art and Design, London, United Kingdom
Une exposition de mémoire, une discothèque silencieuse, le Dojo, Nice, France
2007
Outside The Limits, Chelsea College of Art and Design, London, United Kingdom
L’exposition des idées, galerie expérimentale de la Villa Arson, Nice, France
EDUCATION
2009 DNSEP Villa Arson, Ecole Supérieure d’Art de Nice, Arnaud Labelle-Rojoux promotion
2008 Chelsea College of Art and Design, Erasmus program exchange, London, United Kingdom
2005 Diplôme de Graphisme, Institut Supérieur des Arts Appliqués (ISAA), Paris, France
RESIDENCIES
2015 Chamalot, Moustiers-Ventadour, France
2013 Cité Internationale des Arts with the FrenchFries collective, Paris, France
PUBLICATION/ PRESS/ COLLECTION
2014 Marion Charlet, A l’abri des phantasmes, by Julie CRENN
2013 Du cliché et de la création, by Jean-Louis POITEVIN for the FrenchFries collective
FrenchFries, Live and exotes by Julie CRENN in Inferno Journal, Paris
Génération Optimiste, catalogue de l’exposition
Design of « Woman’s Day » , Poster for the city of Vitry-sur-Seine, France. Posters edited in 400 copies on the J.C Decaux boards in the city
2012 Oui à la peinture / Yes to painting, catalogue of the Maison Tajan
2011 Plastiquement vôtre, BBI, article on the association Plastiquement Vôtre
2010 Les peintures de Marion Charlet déterminent des lieux entre nature et artifice, by Marc Desgranchamps
2009 Les traits Noirs de Moo Chew WONG et ses invités in Santé !, exhibition catalogue, week n°18
2007 Surprenante Villa Arson !, Isabelle Mauchin, web article, Connaissance des Arts
COLLECTIONS
Private collections in Belgium, France and United Kingdom
