Laurence PAPOUIN - Hug me hard and go around the world

Jean-Luc and Takako Richard are happy to present the second solo exhibition by Laurence Papouin entitled “Hug Me Tight and Let’s travel Around the World” from September 3 to October 22, 2022. This exhibition follows the works presented previously in the «Summer Painting Show» at the gallery. The show presents acrylic collages on paper made during The Covid lockdown period. The title of the exhibition evokes those suspended times when hugging and travelling were forbidden.

Laurence Papouin showed us in her previous exhibitions sculptures made with only acrylic. Layers after layers, in a pure pictorial tradition, the succession of coloured layers gave the material the thickness thus creating volumes. During these stressful times of the pandemic, Laurence Papouin has meticulously assembled, arranged, composed of the remains and bottoms of acrylic paint on paper and tracing.

“For several years, I had treasured “the falls”, “the scraps” that the skins of paints rejected and transformed into volume. In the process of the painted objects, the accident was forbidden however the skin of the paint revealed a material pictoriality. During the time of the closures, I wanted to highlight this hidden pictoriality with economy: economy of means and circular thinking of artistic making. The series of upcycling collages thus question the ambiguity of acrylic paint material which is plastic.”

Three-dimensionality is always present in these collages. On some of them, the thickness of several layers of paint refers us to his search for three-dimensionality with acrylic paint. It also comes from the use of the polyester layer overlaid on the paper. Two compositions merge into one and the piles of acrylic accumulate. What is also dominant is more about the qualities of composition and har- mony of colors. The compositions are remarkable thought and of great precision. The colors are brilliant, while breathing with the white space of the paper, veiled or not with the polyester layer.

This new set of works by Laurence Papouin reinforces her place as an original painter in her play with the acrylic medium and as an artist who masters technique and freshness, of a playful spontaneity.

Born in 1974, Laurence Papouin is the winner of the Art.H.E.C and November awards in Vitry; international painting prize. She participated in the exhibition Nouvelles Vagues du Palais de Tokyo, exhibited at the Domaine de Kerguéhennec, at the H du Siège de Valenciennes… From 2017 she showed her work in Seoul and Brussels. His exhibitions have been noticed by the press; the Wall Street Journal, Art Absolument…