EMILIE BITAULD, DEPART IMMINENT BY FABIEN PROST PUBLISHED ON TROYES COULEURS 2018
In the occasion of the 35th edition of European Heritage Days, Ginkgo, the site on which live the Passages Contemporary Arts Center, 2 artists’ residences and 10 artist studios, opened its doors to the visitors, we met three of the present artists, and perceived with happiness all the wealth and the diversity of the inhabitants of the place.
Between artist or traveler, Émilie Bitauld chose to not choose, her journey will be ours, between human and gra phic exploration, between sensually hypnotic watercolors and world travelering paintings second hands musical and floodlit. A journey through the arts, for an artist-researcher who impresses by her capacity to become imbued and to invest new languages between figurative painting, inspired Outsiders, procreative Big Bang and abstract installations.
T.C. What evokes Ginkgo for you?
« I fell in love with Ginkgo twenty years ago, native of Bretagne I studied in Troyes. I was fascinated by this the big tree which gave its name to the residence and with this park, real dream conditions for an artist. After a workshop in Paris I wanted to have a break, I reinstalled in Troyes and I was lucky to integrate this workshop. »
T.C. We feel this idea of journey in your creations, the workshop is a pied-à-terre to better explore the world?
« When I was a child I always said I want to be an artist-painter and a traveler, today the term can seem a little bit old-fashioned, I produce many other things as installations … The journey is a central theme but it is not the whole, in this series we would think of the journey but they are only lampposts, that’s in the title, I take photos of lampposts for 20 years, in around thirty countries, and that also follows the hazards of my life, I did not make only art. I spent quite a lot of time in Egypt, I made residences in Brazil, in Rio, in China, stay in Denmark, or in Thailand too… »
« It is thus a recurring element, as an anchoring but that varies especially by the changes of compositions, looks… where finally the destination gives way to a sensation, a analyzing look more than a postcard, as in this almost very dark and vibrating monochrome where we almost guess Van Gogh’s stars in a capsizing sky … »
« It was a night in the Swamp … rather vibrating indeed! Often I use pieces of rock as titles, there are also references to the American thrillers, it is varied enough. »
T.C. And we imagine there is a symbol in this lamppost …?
« There are many reasons, I began this series when during the Fine arts school … but for example one of my last exhibi tions was called Respublica, with only lampposts, it is at the same time a public object but also just like our republic, it is something that we have to choose together, and we pay less and less attention to them, them see us more and more, with cameras fixed above … that can be also a Cambodian recycled plastic bottles lamppost, very clearly on a pontoon. They are very contemporary things, topical questions, mixed in graphic interpretations. In the starting point there was an idea of internal lighting, I wanted to paint landscapes, but with our actual film approach to things I needed something to live in, without it becomes trivial. An allegorical side, with its own light, but without anything esoteric, it was more an interrogation on the design, and on what this object can say about us. »
T.C. Concerning projects?
We inaugurate with Sébastien Rouet a contemporary art gallery in Reims on September 20th, the A2pasdusacre gallery which has two places, The Residence and A2pasdusacre, just next to the cathedral.
To see it/to know more about it:
https://www.emiliebitauld.com/
http://www.infoculture-reims.fr/details.php? S_ev_id=20515