LES YEUX CLOS (EYES CLOSED). Mathilde Denize, Alex Foxton, Elizabeth Glaessner, Simon Martin, Paolo Salvador
Perrotin, Paris
February 06 – March 27, 2021

Presented for the first time at Perrotin, Mathilde Denize, Alex Foxton, Elizabeth Glaessner, Simon Martin and Paolo Salvador invite us on a disconcerting pictorial journey through their imaginations as made tangible by their dream interpretations. Each painter gives us his or her vision of dreaming, sometimes close to hallucination, delirium and mental confusion turning into nightmare.

The exhibition Eyes Closed is a personal cosmography of the artists where various emotional, cultural and affective journeys blend into one another and echo each other.

‘When I was six or seven years old, I was convinced there were two lives: one where you lived with your eyes open, the other where you lived with your eyes closed.’ – Federico Fellini
Federico Fellini’s masterpiece, The Book of Dreams, is the starting point for this exhibition that brings together five young international artists. A person browsing through the book may be surprised by the strength of the illustrations on two accounts: their aesthetics and the clear link between the director’s dreams and his films. What impact do our nocturnal wanderings have on creation?

The work of Mathilde Denize (b. 1986 in France) is unsettling because of the dreamlike intimacy she generates through her paintings and assemblages. Her works, like painting costumes, immerse us in a colorful and strange fairytale world, where plans and perspectives are challenged, inducing a sense of vertigo in the viewer.

Alex Foxton (b. 1980 in England) gives us his personal version of dream interpretation, permeated with softness and strangeness, through an original series. His methodical, almost obsessive work on the male figure draws on in depth research and many preparatory drawings. At once muted and powerful, his palette leaves us with a feeling of ambiguity, on the threshold of dreamland.

New York artist Elizabeth Glaessner (b. 1984 in the US) creates diaphanous, beautiful and strange works. Her surprising palette belongs to another world and her compositions, inspired by historical paintings and contemporary culture, depict characters with elastic, permeable bodies that seem to exist outside of time. Tinged with subtle eroticism, her works concentrate a marvelous essence that invites us to dream.

The work of Simon Martin (b. 1992 in France) plunges us into a spectral universe where faces fade and identities disappear. Inspired by subjects from his surroundings, he skillfully merges the photographic process in his pictorial practice. His works introduce a tension between reality and dreams.

Paolo Salvador (b. 1990 in Peru) reappropriates the visual codes of modernism to deliver a visionary and allegorical body of work with saturated colors. His interpretation of dreams draws on totemic and cosmic imagery, and is inspired by the myths of his country of origin.

more. www.eaflet.perrotin.com