Mathilde Bonbon
Born in Paris, Mathilde Bonbon has a background in textile design. Her attention to texture remains evident on the surface of her canvases, as likewise her appreciation for the intricacies of thread does in her sculptures. But it was for art’s ability to capture emotion in loose and spontaneous forms that Bonbon left her design practice behind, and it is in this aspect that her work comes to life.
A little army of of moderately proportioned sculptures Bonbon refers to as her Totems, a word well-chosen to reflect the heavy spiritual aura of the objects. Each is a deep, glistening black, painted onto mostly wood, then meticulously bound in natural rope according to the Japanese knot tying practice Shibari. Now mostly known for its use for SM purposes, Shibari is also a form of meditation. That is to say, it is not only about restriction for pleasure-pain, but about learning to find calm, catharsis and beauty in that.They might seem dark and frightening, but Bonbon’s sculptures are much more than that. Everybody hurts – pain is simply part of life, and the totems show us what that looks like materialized. They are a way of processing, facing and coping with life’s emotional ambivalence.
Such affective transference is a mode that reoccurs across Bonbon’s oeuvre. The shiny allure of the totems extends onto the new enamel paintings, like Red Triptych and an untitled dark and royal blue couple (both 2018). In the latter, the artist develops her signature formal language: organic shapes and splotches in various colour combinations, which morph and change their meaning for each frame, and depending on the eyes that see. Almost as if submitted to a Rorschach test, every viewer sees something different: a map, a landscape, a starry night, molecules through a scientist’s microscope.
Often, what is described is a feeling. In Fallen Angel (2016), for instance, the slouching white figure on a blue background, turns its back on the light, like an old fur coat, defeated and fatigued. In The Twins (2015) two yellow shapes, qua the work’s title, evokes two eggs framed by the same membrane, two peas in a pod: a distinctness always on the verge of collapse into total unity, were it not for the black background, suggestive of loss and mourning.
In The Possibility of an Island (2016), the shape that made an egg in The Twins has taken on a different meaning. Named after Michel Houellebecq’s 2005 novel about clones inhabiting a world wrecked by climate change and nuclear war, there’s lots for viewers to read into. And, as that story tells us, a clone is not just a copy, but a reflexive agent. Similarly, in Bonbon’s paintings, forms are cloned and repeated, layers added on top of layers. Like mood rings, these intense picture planes reveal ever changing emotional landscapes, showing us life in all its richness, but from the inside out.
Mon inspiration naît de diverses façons sans hiérarchie. J’exprime et je représente de façon abstraite les expériences intellectuelles et sensorielles que je retire de la lecture de poésie, de l’observation de la nature, de l’écoute de musique.
Mon travail est divers et je choisis les matériaux et les couleurs de façon instinctive. J’aime la fragilité, la délicatesse et la perméabilité du papier; le papier est très sensuel. La toile permet des formats plus larges et, plus robuste, provoque une confrontation physique qui engage le corps tout entier.
Chaque pièce est le témoin d’un moment particulier.
Avec pour point de départ: un matériau, un médium, une forme, ou une simple envie de couleur, je commence, sans définir/décider à l’avance un point final: le résultat se révèle au fur et à mesure que le travail progresse.
Les titres ne décrivent pas, n’expliquent pas mes peintures: ils les accompagnent. Ils sont souvent générés de façon presque automatique (associations de mots, de pensées, de sons) pendant le processus pictural. Leur choix s’impose de façon évidente quand le travail est fini.
Certaines de mes œuvres sont douces, apaisées, apaisantes. D’autres, puissantes et déterminées peuvent parfois ébranler. Silencieuses ou sonores, j’aime teinter chacune de mystère pour suspendre le temps.
Dans un monde en perpétuelle mutation où tout peut être contrôlé/dévoilé j’aspire à créer des œuvres intemporelles ouvertes à l’interprétation personnelle et intime du spectateur.