Odile Levigoureux
Odile Levigoureux has a long-standing interest in 17th-century painting, with a particular appreciation of still lifes. When you look at one of her latest installations, you are immediately drawn back to this pictorial dimension. What interests the artist in her complex reappropriations is the richness and exuberance of materials, colors and touch, brought to life by the work of modeling, pastillage and enameling. Textiles, vegetables, birds (...), as well as all the everyday objects you'd find in a still life, are modeled here in Beauvais clay, a red brick-making clay that she loves to work with. The objects are first produced separately, and the work of composition comes at the moment of glazing, even if this does not allow us to fix everything. The result is a baroque plasticity. This work seeks fluidity and exuberance. Everything seems to be in motion, despite the fact that the firing fixes the material. The profusion of details captivates our eye, which never stops exploring the mother-of-pearl nuances of an oyster, the powdery texture of a bunch of grapes or the decoration of a bowl. For the artist, still life is a form of meditation on the simple things of everyday life. The work presented here, begun barely a year ago, is charged with Odile Levigoureux's other plastic lives, all of which share a kind of organic quivering, visual exuberance and seem to be born in the urgency and burning desire to sculpt. CM
Born in 1945. Lives and works in Arques-la-Bataille (Seine-Maritime).
In 2019, she was awarded the Fondation Bruckner prize in Carouge (CH).
Training
1964-67: École Supérieure des Métiers d'Art, Paris.
Exhibitions
- 2022 : Exubérante Céramique, solo show, Musée de la Chartreuse et école d'art de Douai (Nord-Pas-de-Calais) - 2017 : L'avancée silencieuse, solo show, Chapelle Saint-Julien, Le Petit-Quevilly (Seine- Maritime) - Tenebrae, solo show, Espace Saint-Louis, Bar-le-Duc (Meuse) - 2012: Baroque Sculptures,
solo show, Musée Bossuet, Meaux (Seine-et-Marne) - 2011: Pavane et autres œuvres, solo show, Espace Saint-Pierre des Minimes and Cloître Saint-Corneille, Compiègne (Oise) - 2010: Échos, solo show, Musée Jules Desbois, Parçay-les-Pins (Maine-et-Loire) - 2009: Il mundo que gira, solo show, Château d'Eau-Château d'Art, Bourges (Cher).
