A shell restored with scientific attention to detail. It rubs its sharp angle with marine atmospheres: seas of oil as well as stormy seas. In the same exhibition, Alix Le Juge operates the pendulum movement between the figurative and the abstract, between land and sea. The exhibition Next to me is on view until October 10 at the Imaaya gallery, in The Cubicle building, Royal Road, Phoenix.
On the horizon of the immensity of the sea, there is the hollow of the intimate. Overwhelmed by big waves, trying to stay afloat. Alix Le Juge writes in the preamble to the exhibition: “Leaving one home to find another, abandoning loved ones, adopting orphans, keeping the lights of the past as beacons for the future.”
Next to meit is a variety of subjects close to the short story Alix The Judge. The one who changed house, changed life. And who in perpetual movement, sought an anchor, a stability. The exhibition opens with Tides and passages 10. The gaze plunges into the green waters. At first glance, you don’t know if you’re buried in foliage or underwater. Over the course of the paintings, the colors become lighter, shapes emerge.
Trying to remember, “intentionally blurred” affirms Alix Le Juge, translates the effort of memory to exhume what is buried beneath the setbacks of everyday life. Echoing the feeling of being under the sea, where “we don’t see anything specific”.
The sea, the starting subject of this series proposed by Alix Le Juge, takes a channel here, there, lets itself be carried away by the tides. The artist is struck by a condition: “We can’t go anywhere in the lagoon. You have to wait for the tide to arrive. This restriction of Nature makes us reasonable. The restriction becomes a parameter. It stabilizes us, makes us wiser, makes us listen to the planet.”
Literally at the other end of the gallery, the tide drops us in front of an animal with the real look of a beaten dog. Under the brushes of Alix Le Juge, this dog speaks to us. “Where I moved, I adopted the old dogs that were there. This dog has a look that makes you wonder, ‘What the hell happened?’” A look that resonates with personal experiences, confides the painter.
Here she goes again. Blown by the wind, one of the other subjects of Next to me. It goes without warning from the gentle breeze punctuating a boat trip to the bad wind of the class IV cyclone warning. A «relentless energy»says Alix Le Juge, a “constancy which is reassuring”. And which leads her towards her almost veneration of shells. “They are so perfect, it’s almost miraculous. There is such balance in their structure, which is why I drew them so meticulously. I wanted to be as accurate as possible, even if we cannot compare it with the beauty of Nature.”
Getting lost in the geometric details of the shells made him “really good. You have to let things happen and the object speaks to you as it goes along”.
Painting workshop
Color your dreams, your memories. Express all those things that are so close to you. As an extension of the “Next to me” exhibition, artist Alix Le Juge is offering a creativity workshop on Saturday, October 5, from 10 a.m. to noon, at the Imaaya gallery in Phoenix. This will be an opportunity to release your emotions and creativity thanks to a diversity of techniques, from ink to charcoal, from pencil to brush, to tell your story in writing and in drawings. These are the techniques that resulted in the “Next to me” exhibition. Price: Rs 700 per person. Reservations before October 3 at [email protected].
