And There Was Light (Et la lumière fut)
2015-2016
Installation
Single copy – 23 carat gold leaf and acrylic on 10 canvases – 120 x 80cm
Invited by the Galerie Patrick Gutknecht, Emmanuelle Michaux proposes an installation of a helical lamp in black varnished wood made by Jean-Michel Franck and Salvador Dali circa 1939. The artist chose this work, which she first saw without a lampshade, as a bare sculpture.
The particularity of Jean-Michel Frank’s work lies in having breathed intense life into a desert-like decoration with existensialised objects that sum up the enigma of the living, as author Claude Arnault says.
This enigma also forms the core of Emmanuelle Michaux’s work, and inspired this installation of a series of paintings entitled Et la lumière fut (And there was light).
A gold leaf gilded square, the same size as the little images from the Trois secondes et deux images series. A compact black, sandy material gravitates around it as if drawn to or repulsed by the gold leaf.
By putting the material and immaterial back to back, the artist produces a memento mori.