GALERIE VALERIE DELAUNAY
Yoan Beliard , France
Timothée Schelstraete , France
Dans un temps et en un lieu donnés
Yoan Béliard, Témoin, 2023, plâtre et toner, 80 x 112 cm
What fine web of conjunctions can link the work of Yoan Beliard and that of Timothée Schelstraete? Probably less that of the subjects or the motives that one could locate in turn in the one and in the other than this common and shared way of observing and analyzing the world and the things. These two artists – the first rather sculptor the second rather painter; although? -, do not open windows on the world, they take of this world which surrounds us for better deconstructing it finely and then rearrange it differently in order to bring perspective and depth to it. As if it was necessary for them, each in its way, to declutter, what proliferates all around us – like a cut in a bushy wood or a weeding within a library – in order to bring back light, if not clarity, in a given time and place.
This exhibition testifies to this as they question our relationship to reality and the way this one invalidates our relations to the forms as to the figures. According to Isabelle Monod-Fontaine, the artist Constantin Brancusi had delimited his in two zones: one, public, place of presentation, the other, private, place of creation, the photography making sometimes the link between the one and the other. Here, there seems to have no separation, no demarcation: the work draws its legitimacy of the real and its images that the artist observes, analyzes, absorbs, redefines; then this one redoubles them, diffracts them, densifies them in its expression itself. It is contiguous to the real, holds to it more closely. Also, on one hand, it side, she allows herself at any time to be contaminated by this one; on the other hand, she disturbs it in return, sometimes like an echo sometimes like a hiccup.
Nevertheless, Yoan Beliard seems to be particularly interested in the inner structure of the forms, to this singular faculty that they possess to assemble, to associate, almost to magnetize between them. Whereas Timothée Schelstraete seems to be on the side of the appearance of figures, of their particular way of emerging, of dazzling the eye, then of fading away like the ghost of themselves. With the first, the volumes are integrated into the plan of the work by occupying it whole or part, by testing its limits, by playing of the interstices less like voids or lacks than like whites or faults of the space. With the second, the layers are superimposed and to obtain a trembling of the image suitable to play of the shades and the lights, presences and absences. For all that, in one as in the other, the real, its forms and its figures – if not its lures – are found simultaneously in tension, in permanent vibration.
In other words, suspended in a state of interior as external disorder that reinforce by contrast of the apparent effects of frameworks, structurations, markings more or less affirmed or suggested, effective or implicit. And these states of fragility, precariousness, impermanence assert themselves paradoxically as the very conditions of the experience of a glance, of a thought of the world. Their respective works, here in conversation, become from then on as many indices suitable to redefine our certainties vis-a-vis of reality, and invite to a continuous revaluation of this time, this space, this history, this memory which constitute each of us.
Exhibition from May 04 to June 10, 2023.
The gallery
Established in 2014, Galerie Valérie Delaunay is resolutely committed to promoting emerging artists whose work in painting and drawing questions through emotion.
In particular, she presents the work of artists who invite the rediscovery of figurative work that began in the 1990s and has developed since.
It represents, since 2018, Timothée Schelstraete, winner of the Novembre à Vitry prize in 2013 and winner 2021 of the Prix d'encouragement en Peinture de l'Académie des Beaux-arts and whose two pieces have recently entered the collection of FRAC Normandie Rouen.
During the summer of 2021, the gallery has given carte blanche to the painter Arnaud Adami, winner of the Bertrand de DEMANDOLX- DEDONS portrait prize of the Friends of Fine Arts of Paris.
Other painters have joined the gallery, including Barbara Navi and Florence Obrecht, whose paintings will be presented in the IMMORTELLE exhibition at MOCO in spring 2023, and Ulysse Bordarias, resident in April 2023 at the Langen Foundation.
Also sensitive to the medium of drawing, the gallery represents Hélène Muheim who creates her large landscapes in graphite powder, ink and eye shadow and who will present, for the inaugural exhibition of the Bally Foundation in April 2023, a drawing six meters long and of which a large drawing has just entered the collection of the FRAC de Picardie. Since 2022, the gallery is also pleased to collaborate with Mohamed Lekleti who, in an approach that is both narrative and poetic, gives us a very personal look at the contemporary world.
From the beginning, the gallery has also initiated a cycle OUVRAGES DE DAMES whose first curator was Dominique Païni, by inviting women artists to present their work among which Claire Chesnier, Marie Hazard, Giulia Andreani, Kubra Khademi (first solo exhibition in France at the gallery) or Karine Rougier, winner of the Drawing Now 2022 prize.
In addition to this painting program, the gallery has also been working for the past two years to broaden its scope to include other media by representing Julie Legrand, who creates glass pieces, Yoan Béliard, who presents works in plaster, Claire Lindner, who works in stoneware and has just been named a finalist for the Loewe Foundation's Craft Prize, and Edith L'Haridon, a textile artist, three of whose works have been added to the CNAP (Centre national des arts plastiques) collection.
Finally, one of the gallery's vocations is to devote monographic exhibitions to its artists, to participate in fairs such as the 2023 edition of Drawing Now (the gallery presented the work of Hélène Muheim and Mohamed Lekleti, focus artist) and Art Luxembourg Week, to participate in off-site exhibitions such as Manifesta in Lyon during the biennial, and to collaborate with institutions in order to engage with each of them in order to defend and ensure the best possible dissemination of their work.
The gallery is a member of the Comité Professionnel des Galeries d'Art and the Paris Gallery Map guide.
Gallery artists
Radu Belcin, Yoan Béliard, Ulysse Bordarias, Julie Legrand, Mohamed lekleti, Claire Lindner, Hélène Muheim, Barbara Navi, Natacha Nikouline, Florence Obrecht, Flavia Pitis, Julie Polidoro, Sylvain Polony, Timothée Schelstraete, Martine Schildge, Fabien Vershaere
