Art Paris Art Fair 2024 (stand H8)

"Art Paris Art Fair 2024 (stand H8)"

from Wednesday, April 3, 2024 to Sunday, April 7, 2024

Grand Palais Ephémère

L'HERBE AUX YEUX BLEUS, 2020-2023
SOLO SHOW

TGalerie XII presents a solo show of the French artist Sophie Zénon at Art Paris Art Fair, from April 4 to 7, 2024 at the Grand Palais Éphémère.

It is under an enigmatic title, The Blue-Eyed Grass, that the artist presents her latest opus around so-called obsidional plants, these allogeneic plants introduced by foreign armies during periods of conflict (from Napoleonic Wars to WWII), drawing in hollow the reciprocal influences between human and plant migrations.

The Blue-Eyed Grass (Sisyrinchium montanum Greene) arrived in Lorraine, in the East of France, during the First World War, thanks to seeds contained in the hay brought by the General Pershing’s troop to feed their horses. It is one of the 21 obsidional plants found that region of France. Recent botanical research on these plants provides an original entry point for tracing the history of a territory, underlining our link to the environment, and approaching migration from a particularly innovative angle.

Through a staged set-up which invites the viewer to physically enter the landscape, Sophie Zénon offers a journey around rebirth and repair. Faithful to her approach, which places a strong emphasis on experimentation and cross-disciplinary practices, the artist presents a series of organic works, sublimated by gesture.

In a multi-faceted approach, paper prints of tree bark - woven, sculpted and modelled into delicate, ghostly silhouettes - stand side by side with spectacular plant photograms, charcoal prints of bruised trees, shimmering orotones of slender trees and fragile flowers, shifting landscapes on semi-transparent veils and mixed-media artist's books.

From macrocosm to microcosm, visitors dive into the heart of the plant world, which, through the interplay of scales, becomes a topographical map, an animal skin, a mineral universe...