The exhibition opens with a gouache in which a woman drinking from a bottle is depicted. Walking through the exhibition you will meet this figure constantly, though less centrally staged. Where earlier the human figure played a central role in her work, now the environment has become the subject. The space is literally breaking through the figure. Where earlier the centre of the image related to the figure, it is now often the emptiness, a worn piece of loose wallpaper, a moldy wall. This also switches the attention from the subject to the structure and the material of the drawings.
Courtillot's stagings have a strongly cinematic character. It is hard to interpret time by means of the interiors and the figure's clothing, it could be always and anywhere, adding a vague atmosphere penetrated with suspense. As a kind of Alice in Wonderland the depicted figure is moving through a gloomy setting, searching, wandering and exploring space. Courtillot had herself amongst others inspired by Suspiria (1977) -a classic by Italian film maker Dario Argento-, and the early silent films.
Courtillot has painted the walls of gallery in various colors, freely based on the color principle used by the Bauhaus group for designing exhibition rooms. The various colors are supposed to reflect a certain atmosphere and react to the paintings and influence the spectator's experience. Courtillot is using this theory to repair the distorted harmony of the broken-off spaces in her gouaches. The spaces of the portrayed dilapidated rooms don't seem to stop at the frames of the sheet of paper, but to continue into the exhibition room.
Delphine Courtillot
Past exhibition