Exhibition Estrine museum: Marine Wallon, Ce lieu-là

Marine Wallon paints landscapes of painting. Since she began working on canvas in 2013, she has cast doubt on her connection to the landscape tradition, instead focusing on questioning the place itself—that of individual and collective memory. To do so, she creates screenshots of forgotten documentary archives and uses notes taken on location. Her canvases reveal spaces of wandering, strolling, and crossing. Has she seen these seascapes or mountain landscapes, these deserted beaches, these steep cliffs, these turbulent rivers, these misty distances, these arid deserts? Has she encountered these lost skiers, these lost walkers, these mysterious boats? Only the titles—place names with a singular ring to them—offer a few geographical clues. Her multiple viewpoints seem to construct an infinite, almost labyrinthine spatiality, within which the viewer can lose themselves, pause, and gaze toward the hinterland—a concept dear to Yves Bonnefoy. The figure—whether human or animal, and often minuscule—is reduced to an anonymous presence immersed in vast expanses of dynamic color that oscillate between abstraction and figuration. By simplifying details and exaggerating the size of her brushstrokes, Marine Wallon creates a vibration in the painted surface, further accentuated by an intense play of color. Textural effects clash on her canvases, which range from very small to monumental. Some areas are smooth and painted in flat swaths; others are rendered with thick strokes that hint at various tools—spatulas, scrapers, spatulas, rags, glass wool…—capable of suggesting the materiality of a floor, a rock, or a wave. Recently, Marine Wallon has returned to her original medium: paper. She juxtaposes acrylic washes, oil pastels, and pencil, and makes use of the paper’s lightness to capture the fleeting nature of her impressions. Her printmaking work is also beginning to expand. Since her engraved copper plate, Isola, commissioned by the Chalcographie du Louvre and printed as an intaglio engraving, she has continued to explore new techniques. Curated by Anne Dary, Honorary Chief Curator of Heritage.