The theater inhabited by “The Embrace of Hours” by the artist Elodie Bachelier

After several months spent dreaming of this project, the artist says he savors the magic of the moment. Élodie Bachelier, who signs under her artist name “Lodbach”, has decorated the passageways, the rotunda and the suspended gallery of the Ducourneau theater in Agen with her works which will be presented to the gaze of contemplators: music lovers, theater lovers, enthusiasts of dance, philosophers during the last Meetings, until May 17, 2025.

An “inhabited” place

“The theater has become my familiar place, inhabited by my works. Emotions come to the surface through the encounters, the shows, this lively and resolutely human spectacle in what is most human.” The series was called “The Embrace of Hours”, one of those that stretch, tick away, moments suspended in this beautiful Italian theater. The hours that end up making a fulfilled life and embrace it in all its forms, underlines the painter. The finesse of the hands that seek each other, grab hold, hold on, detach themselves, of the bodies that embrace, hide, escape. An ode to what is alive, vibrant, fervent, in the image of the artist. An experiment in transparency too, like this new work on plexiglass “which does not hold the material in the same way”, reveals Elodie Bachelier. The Plexiglas highlights the features which become imprints in the decor. An overprint and superposition that flirts with the painted allegories of Antoine Calbet. It is a true artistic performance that the young woman performs, based on a technique developed by observing the tides, the immersion of the body in the water, the inspiring ocean waves. She prepares a mixture based on acrylic and ink which she projects in drips onto the support placed on the ground, using a wooden stick which has been shaped by the currents and the sea spray. “It contains the memory of the moment, which brings me a particular intensity once the time comes to create.” Lively and aerial gestures for precision work.

By instinct

His sketches are touching, disarming, embodied. There is no physical contact between the painter and the canvas, a strange paradox as we feel the texture of the skin, the scent of the hair, the mapping of the veins, the softness of a face, the eyelids which fold in the joy of reunion or the sadness of separation… Elodie’s paintings deliver snippets of stories, whisper sweet words of love, when she does not place a poem that she wrote, on the steps of the theater stairs. By instinct, dictated by her hypersensitivity, her skin-deep feeling and her lasting grace both in what she gives off and what she infuses into her works. The exhibition will last until spring as visitors wander around. A dialogue between Élodie’s evanescent, silent but eloquent sketches and the lively performances on stage.