Magalie Guérin
May 25 to June 29, 2019
Galerie Nicolas Robert is pleased to present for the first time the work of Magalie Guérin at the gallery. Two distinct series are featured in this exhibition, the first composed of five paintings and the second of two, across all of which Magalie Guérin explores the concept of resolution and questions the idea of a complete, finished work of art.
For years, Magalie Guérin has made a practice of imposing rigorous formal restrictions on her creative process. If in the past the artist has challenged herself to work only in small scale or to restrain the diversity of forms in the composition of her paintings, here she is seen imposing a serial and repetitive process of production. The artist works simultaneously on all the works in a given series, repeating the same forms and movements until arriving at a satisfying composition. The individual painting is then taken out while the others are reworked, and so on until the series is completed. The evolution of the composition is perceptible as a group, although its presence is more subtle in the individual works. If repetition is a means and not an end in and of itself, Magalie Guérin is more interested, in the body of work presented in the exhibition, in narrative and the story intrinsic to the image. The process described allows the artist to create a multitude of discourses, each having the same starting point and origin. The overall tactileness of the surface, featuring integrated forms and edges, brings its own discourse to each work, which must be experienced directly in person.
