Sophie Jodoin

DE PEINE ET DE MISÈRE
10.14–11.20.2010
Room 1

Evoking troubled memories, at times nostalgic, and at others marked by repressed difficulties, the childhood figures that Sophie Jodoin draws appeal to memory, but also to the imagination which is engaged whenever we try to reconstruct our past. For three year now, the artist has been using collage as a preliminary and necessary stage before proceeding with her drawings. These collages, comprised in this case of family photographs, act as a form of writing which makes it possible to spread out the narrative and get rid of any form censorship.

The work with the human body-always very present in Sophie Jodoin’s art-does not, however, seek to represent or illustrate individuals in particular. In turning away from portraiture, her drawings avoid specific recognition and project anonymous figures, whose instability invokes an empathetic gaze. If the artist targets childhood as a decisive moment, it is also because it contains the “world of the possible and impossible.” This meaning laden charge is close to daydreams or déjà-vus, all of which are ambiguous spaces where memories are often combined into most disturbing scenarios.

As part of this exhibition at CLARK the collages from which the artist worked to produce her drawings will be presented in a book produced for the occasion. This publication also contains poems written by Louise Marois. To make this document an active element within the exhibition an antique mirror overhangs it; this not only produces a reversed perspective, but also reminds us of how the gaze we cast on our own reflection is often the source of an uneasy relationship.

Aseman Sabet

Translation : Bernard Schutze