Decorated circles remind us of that game, the spirograph, which allowed us to create designs inside circles. Here, the artist Marie Elisabeth Collet shares her universe of circles, planets, novas, black holes. Time, her time, is an eternal cycle. Where does the circle begin, and where does it end? Can it be defined?
It’s the cycle of time. “I would have liked to capture the first cry of a baby when it is born into life,” the artist explains to us.
Indeed, the cocoon has burst, the cord has been cut, and he is alone, his cry, a cheer to life or, on the contrary, fear? Hence these circles, each having its response. They are an abstract representation of the cycle of life. It tightens and arrives at its center, a black dot, the death of a planet? Water disappearing into the bathtub drain? The double face, a journey through time, a life’s journey.
Then, Marie Elisabeth presents her latest works. The circles were ten years ago at the Galerie des Ponchettes; they are there as a mark of the continuity of this time, never fixed and always in motion.
The latest works, pastels, straight lines, if one can define their beginning, their end is unseen. The painting is trapped within its frame, but the line, the lines, are drawn, a finger pointing to infinity, infinity. The artist juggles with the elements: water; air, earth, and fire. Fire, the color of the earth, an ochre land marking Provence, Les Baux, Roussillon. A land of light and solitude, that of the wise.
The earth is pottery, ceramics, and here too, the symbol of time, its immateriality, its eternity, the time of a life, but does a life end? Flowers, chalices, shells, the salt of the sea, the purifying wave, and the nest, the beginning of life. Marie Elisabeth Collet offers us her vision of the earth, both that of the farmer and the one we live on. The earth does not lie, one might say in conclusion. An exhibition to see, smell, and touch, a stimulation of three senses, a pleasure for the soul, the intellect, and the eyes. Marie Elisabeth Collet Galerie Depardieu until August 1, 2015.
Thierry Jan
