Fabienne Verdier- Retables, Waddington Custot, London - Flipbook - Page 26
The ground is a tapestry of matter and gesture, imprint and depth, memory
and becoming, all sealed in an irreducible unity. What I most like about
the Rainbow Paintings is that the form seen is identical to the form of
what is doing the seeing: a constellation-pupil in which the eye contains its
origin and perpetuates its echo. Among the works she was preparing for
Galerie Lelong in Paris and Waddington Custot in London, there was one
piece Fabienne Verdier was hesitating over; to my amazement, she asked
my opinion. On a gold background, the area where the line was to be made
was in a sort of hollow. The artist wondered whether this visible absence
shouldn’t suffice as a way of expressing her motif. The enigma that precedes appearance. To me, this was a powerful idea: the line was one with
the ground. In this inhabited void, Fabienne Verdier finally allowed a red
trickle to run, as if she had let some blood in the place where previously
there was nothing. The life of the unnameable was revealed.
THE ARMS
OF THE INVISIBLE
The greatest challenge always lies in making simplicity the expression of
an otherwise untranslatable truth. All explanations – however brilliant,
erudite or sophisticated – that seek to capture its essence invariably fall
short. It remains elusive, nestled deep within the core of its form. Similarly, our own presence in the world and the purpose for which we exist
eludes definitive understanding. Art perpetually engages with and probes
this enigma. The new works that Fabienne Verdier will be presenting in
autumn 2024 in Paris and London experiment with a new support. She
has often orchestrated her imagination over two or three panels and even
polyptychs. The universe, which is one and undivided, extends across an
aggregation of galaxies as its force expands space. Similarly, in Fabienne
Verdier’s works, as the number of fragments multiplies, the surface remains
a shared canvas for them all. With the altarpiece, a new dimension unfolds:
the two side panels alleviate the work’s flatness. Their mobility extends
the sweep of the painterly gesture. The painter describes them as open
arms stretched towards the world. The work literally seems to embrace the
viewer. The content radiates outwards, while the viewer is welcomed into
the heart of the image. The title of one of Fabienne Verdier’s altarpieces,
Glisse le dessin des collines (The outline of the hills glides by), perfectly
illustrates the painting’s “departure” from its support and into the world.
It reconciles art and life, matter and idea, as suggested by the work Soyons
le corps et l’esprit flottant (Let’s be the floating body and spirit). The outer
panels give the painting not just arms, but wings. An obvious spiritual
significance emerges from the dual complicity inscribed on a ground in
which golden and earthy elements are combined. Fabienne Verdier’s use
of the expression “open arms” is apt: it is indeed by the use of her arms
that this has come into being. The creation is founded in the reality of the
body, while another, less definable force operates through the artist as she
executes her movement.
Recourse to the altarpiece as a unitary trinity reflects the artist’s intention
to capture the creative impulse in the eternal present within a timeless
framework. In Christian tradition, the altarpiece is part of the altar, the
holiest space in a church and the symbolic location of the source around
which the congregation gathers. It is the site of communion, where the
sacred sacrifice is continually reaffirmed. In a single pictorial composition, pivotal events from the Gospels are harmonised with other biblical
narratives and the lives of saints depicted in the predellas. This blending
of temporalities within the painting aligns with Fabienne Verdier’s aspiration to encapsulate cosmic forces within a unified space-time. The dualpanel altarpiece allows this energy to radiate almost three-dimensionally
through its various components, as if the very force that forged unity now
permeates through them. Following her encounter with the Flemish masters
in Bruges, the Issenheim Altarpiece in Colmar and the Italian Renaissance in
a Roman palazzo, this marked a step for Fabrienne Verdier in the direction
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Fabienne Verdier
Rainbow Painting (detail)
2022
Moon over the studio
