SOPHIE KITCHING

Curated by Gaël Charbau
Bourse Révélations Emerige 2016
Villa Emerige, Paris, 2016

« Two venetian blinds are laid out at a right angle with diffusing neon lights of various temperatures hanging from them... Sophie Kitching’s work, Day 1/2 - 2/2 (2015) is emblematic of her visual experiences. Sophie Kitching’s work, Day 1/2 - 2/2 (2015) is emblematic of her visual experiences. Presented in the darkness, the artwork suggests a sort of impish strangeness and states an immediate presence in the space, toying with our domestic reflexes. It is a collage, in the sense that those elements are simply brought closer, laid out and presented as a logical consequence to readymades. In viewing the collective placement of works created by the artist, a few principles that seemingly guide her work can be found. The artist explains this effect in this way: “I usually work with simple materials. I alter them, transform them, bring them together and reuse them in a different way than their daily use. Their low cost allows me to try multiple experimentations. I like the idea that the object already exists, that it doesn’t need to be built and that it can thus be transformed immediately.”1 However in “Autumn” (2016), she uses a slightly more precious material: gold leaf, that is used to directly delimit the sun reflecting through a window onto an uneven wall, referring to the Japanese technique called kintsugi. In the sculpture “re-” (2015-16), a fragment of a branch maintains the letters “re-” formed by neon lights, in an aquarium half filled with water. Designed to be installed in a darkened room, the artwork refers to Chateaubriand’s “summed up landscapes”. The presence of landscape is evident in her work: whether it is abstract and created with paint and collages (the series “Mirror Painting” or “Veranda”, 2016), manifested in the shape of a recollection in her videos, or explicitly enhanced with oil paint on Watkins’ digital prints (“Over Watkins”, 2015), it is always about space, light, intricate materials and overlapping seams. With the perceptible strength of her intuitions, Sophie Kitching guides us through an environment that seems to offer the systematic sloughing of ordinary objects: towards the west of art, in this place where poetry resides.»

Gaël Charbau, 2016