Eugénie Paultre: Matter of Life

Erna Hecey is delighted to present Eugénie Paultre’s second solo show entitled Matter of Life, in a new space in Luxembourg City-Centre. The exhibition will inaugurate two adjacent spaces, located in an urban complex designed by Foster + Partners in 2019.

Eugénie Paultre wonders what a shared world might look like. This is the case in her writings, as early as L’état actuel des choses (2012), as well as her painting. During a six-month residency in the English countryside in 2018-19, she devoted herself to painting large format canvases: there, the language of coloured lines, that she had developed until then on paper and canvas, extended into new physical dimensions. This period of intense production, where the painting took on an almost performative quality, was accompanied by moments of reflection. Eugénie Paultre took notes, and from this journal came Matter of Life (HENI, 2021), which questions the possibility of being alive, and the ways in which art can nourish this possibility.

In addition to presenting some of the large-scale paintings created in England for the first-time, the exhibition also includes a selection of works that retrace a journey made through art over several years, in parallel to her “Lines” series. Rather than a retrospective, it is an exploration of the experience of painting in many formats, using pigment, oil, ink, a knife, a cutter, fabric, wood or a paintbrush. Still life. Abstract. Action painting. Geometric. Figurative. Landscape. And also, assemblages, bordering on outsider art, where it is all about letting emerge. The many styles or modulations reveal the possibilities brought about by the act of painting as they converge in the exhibition space.

Erna Hecey City-Centre

Hamilius Centre-rue Aldringen

L-1118 Luxembourg
Public opening 2 July 2021, 6-9pm
Opening hours: Tuesday 3-7pm, Thursday and Friday 2-7pm, Saturday 3-7pm

DOWNLOAD ARTIST'S CV

Matter of Life by Eugénie Paultre [Read interview]