Description
During the summer, the Archipel hosts the work of two visual artists (painters, photographers, printmakers, etc.) from the Fouesnant area – whether amateur or professional – every week.
This week’s programme features Marie-Hélène Cotten and Nicole Gouiffès
- Marie-Hélène Cotten, collages
Marie-Hélène Cotten has always loved exploring the various worlds of collage, an often-overlooked art form that has had its masters among the Surrealists and Cubists, and many others since. Aragon defined it as ‘a kind of despair on the part of the painter, on the scale of which the world is reimagined ’.
Most of the collages presented here evoke landscapes (cities, countryside, mountains and the sea). By cutting, tearing and assembling the materials that inspire her – packaging, sandpaper, posters, plant matter and old papers rich with the marks of time – she composes a somewhat contemplative vision of the world, between earth and sky, dawn and dusk, mist and light, always seeking new harmonies.
- Nicole Gouiffès, collages
“A sheet of paper, a line, a falling drop, a colour spreading, a space being created.”
Self-taught, Nicole Gouiffès has always been drawn to drawing and painting. Her diligent exploration of line and surface through drawing, watercolour and oil painting – techniques that sometimes intertwine – has fuelled her curiosity to experiment with the use of paper, initially as a complement and later as the sole element of the composition. A light preparatory sketch, an exploration of materials and the rendering of thickness and transparency, the development of contours or the suggestion of forms, work that is sometimes mirrored: everything serves as a pretext for anticipation and reflection. It is the sheer richness of the papers that serves as a source of inspiration.
