GALERIE SABRA

Guillemette Schlumberger explores the world of plants, flowers and organic material, intrigued by their array of shapes, textures and infinite colours. The three years she spent in Brazil left a lasting impression on the artist: "a real Arabian Nights experience," as Bonnard described his visit to the south of France. This naturally led her to explore the theme of paradise lost, a sort of Eden that she recomposes at will. Through her powerful imagination, she combines a proliferation of botanical, dream-like aspects with elements of reality to create bold compositions.   

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The different layers create a vibrant texture, giving rise to a subtle, yet highly-detailed lyricism, somewhere between the all-over floral motifs of the Middle Ages, Sam Szafran, the spontaneity of Séraphine de Senlis, and Klimt's lush gardens of 1905. "When I begin working, I leave a lot up to chance, I like to play around with the materials." Then, she allows the painting to guide her, engaged in a mental and physical adventure in itself.  

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The artist seeks to create a fictional space, in which figures act as mirrors to our being, in a world where plant and aquatic elements (sometimes) intertwine, where time seems to stand still. Dream and reality blur into one. What dramatic play is the artist enacting on her canvases? What unexpected, inner film is being projected?  

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She likes to include little surprises that raise questions in a subtle, discreet way, such as a silhouette floating through the air, a yogi meditating on a rock in the distance, birds floating in an aquarium, flowers dancing under the skin, childish legs sticking out from under a tree, a strange shadow in the form of a dwelling peeking out from under foliage…These silhouettes seem to be communicating with one another, a host of presences — or perhaps absences?  

But nature always meddles – unavoidable, omnipresent, the last tangible and sure thing, unlike these figures who seem to fly
through Time…