Superposition of experiences. Discovering the Amazonian forest, where moss has taken over and extends as far as the leaves of trees. Ants crawl over the scented bodies of humans. Rubing yourself with grass to create the illusion of being a plant. Later, wandering through the Moselle forests, listening to a bryologist describe his concept of space, industrialisation and the crude commodification of nature. Gathering mushrooms after the rain. Transparency, collage and folding; stylised flora appears and disappears in light of an unresolved black-and-white moment.

In the work of Éléonore False, the image is the point of departure. Observed, extracted, classified. Divided, enlarged, discoloured, superposed, juxtaposed, folded, reversed, inverted. Observed, forgotten, rediscovered. Through a range of gestures, she offers the image the possibility of an alternate existence, freeing it from its original, historical and symbolic context. She embraces its materiality, patterns, frames and colours. Inevitably, certain images insist on manifesting themselves in memory, as if demanding to be freed from their flatness—a reminder of their imago/imagines root, ancient funerary masks allowing the deceased to assert their presence during processions through the wax imprint of their faces.

Collected images of rare mushrooms on glossy paper. With the help of a glass blower these images are reinterpreted, without seeking to copy them or produce functional objects. Traditional craft techniques such as weaving, basketry, and raku are chosen by the artist for their expressive potential and inspire her to search out specific types of images. Heating, blowing, turning, blowing, turning, chiselling, sandblasting. This glassmaking expertise is evocative of organic aesthetics: the offshoots and strange curves of russulas, pezizas, or tremellas. While the analogy between the body and nature is clear, the form produced is an isolated one, torn from its mnemonic pedestal, re-opened.

A memory palace. The sculptures and installations are elements in a landscape-in-progress. They enter into a multi-faceted dialogue before returning to their fragmentary state, in the manner of a metonymy, the part standing in for the whole. In his Fragments, Novalis writes: ‘Our body is a part of the world—or better, a limb: It already expresses the independence, the analogy with the whole—in short, the concept of the microcosm. The limb must correspond to the whole. The whole must correspond to the limb.’ In the work of Éléonore False, effects are indirect, induced by the body of the other, who in turn observes the forms produced, takes possession, forgets and rediscovers them. The viewer is invited to engage in silent conversation and movement. Evoking dreams and wandering, the images give free rein to associations and interactions. A romantic allegory, subject to eternal returns. The infinite scope of a circular process of contemplation and oblivion. A perpetual incompletion, a promise of spaces and transgressions.

Marie Bechetoille

The glasswork pieces were produced with the support of CIAV - Centre International d'Art Verrier de Meisenthal.

The artist residency programme is organised by the CAC - la synagogue de Delme in collaboration with the Lorraine Regional Natural Park and the Commune of Lindre-Basse.