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Artworks:

Francesca Gabbiani

And to Come Down, 2008
collage and acrylic on paper
diamètre 130.0 cm
For Francesca Gabbiani, the creation of a collage usually starts with a photograph she has spontaneously taken on her phone during walks around the apparently centreless “urban hell” that is Los Angeles. It is only in a second phase that the artist meticulously goes back over the details of the image to “let it explode” until they assume the form of a drawing. This in turn becomes “a reinterpretation as a large painting” before being transformed one last time into a collage of paper-cuttings. This long and complex process of creation, which deconstructs and reconstructs an image through stratification, goes beyond the spontaneous and experimental framework of the collage or cut-up, by disclosing carefully constructed, highly stylised scenes.

And to Come Down (2008) and Laid in the Shade 1 (2008) both embody this disturbing reverie by presenting an improbable natural setting including gigantic flowers and mushrooms that evoke poisonous and psychedelic attributes. On the other hand, Maelstrom/After (2009) aims at an artificial architectural setting, by projecting forward a completely deserted staircase. In both cases, the choice of colours was critical, since it defines the intensity of the scene. Gabbiani finds extreme, audacious colours that contrast with one another to the point of triggering an almost physical reaction of rejection or fascination on the part of the viewer. She does not just play with a feeling of déjà vu, but also with feelings of “déjà-vécu” [already experienced] or “déjà-senti” [already felt], by reactivating an immediate perception in the viewer.

Faced with this carefully constructed universe, at the boundary of the familiar and the unknowable, one can only surrender to a perpetual utopia that is at once threatening and captivating.
Francesca Gabbiani, And to come down, Et de venir en bas, 2008