FRAGILE - Manuela Luchtmeijer

FRAGILE (HANDLE WITH CARE)

silhouettes
barely traced
pure
naked
touche
suggest
whisper
sublime

the void

Derrière le titre provocateur de sa nouvelle série (FRAGILE ) et ses encres et peintures en apparence simples, le travail de l’artiste néerlandaise Manuela Luchtmeijer cache un sens profond et une réelle maîtrise du trait. Manuela raconte à sa façon une histoire universelle : celle des femmes dont on loue depuis la nuit des temps la douceur, la fertilité, la force et la beauté.

Chinese ink and the calligraphy brush are perfect for drawing, or rather suggesting, the postures of women - sometimes relaxed and sensual, sometimes prostrated and folded up, in an attempt to protect themselves against indiscreet glances at their vulnerable bodies on exhibition. Bodies in which are inscribed their most intimate stories.

The refinement of drawing, which extracts only the essential (a particularity of Chinese painting that the artist has freely appropriated), allows a game between fullness and nothingness, fantasy and the concrete, the said and the unsaid. This harmony is brutally broken by large red labels stuck randomly on these delicate silhouettes. These labels, normally affixed to postal packages, symbolize here the female object and denounce the violence too often suffered by women around the world.

But these drawings are first and foremost a tribute to the vulnerable and touching grace of woman, sometimes so fragile behind their air of seemingly effortless solidity.

EXHIBITIONS. J’ai eu l’immense honneur d’avoir été sélectionnée pour présenter cette série au siège de l’ UNESCO à Paris en mars 2013 dans le cadre de la journée internationale de la femme en tant que représentante européenne (avec le soutien de l’Ambassade des Pays-Bas). Pictures

In November 2014 this series was shown at the Bankside Gallery in London (next to the Tate Modern Museum). Pictures