Almine Rech Paris Turenne, Front Space, presents My Virgin Skin on Yours, Aurélie Gravas's first solo exhibition with the gallery, on view from September 3 to 21, 2024.
In the Brussels studio of Aurélie Gravas, we find countless lyrical encounters. There, on the canvas, the painter combines all her primary forms and her primal forces with the colors she loves and the materials she never ceases to explore. From these gentle cohabitations there emerge recurring and obsessive motifs: birds, fish, flowers, and most of all, faces. Faces with no subjects extend over the entire canvas, inviting landscapes, wind, and many pure emotions.
The forms confuse us at first as we hesitate, remaining in uncertainty and unable to choose between anxiety and joy. This mirrors the artist’s own tensions, questions, and perpetual quest: tears or flames, fish or eye, clouds or fingers, curtains or hair? The black line precisely defines and describes. Soft or bright colors then infuse all their light, all their energy. Gradually, faces emerge and appear. They are complex, multiple, ambivalent. They may display several emotions, sometimes with opposing sensations. The faces are mysterious and enchanting. Aurélie Gravas is never definitive, never representational: her painting gives us free rein. It is up to us to see everything; it’s our turn to play.
