{"id":114302,"date":"2022-04-05T11:31:55","date_gmt":"2022-04-05T09:31:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/?p=114302"},"modified":"2022-04-05T13:55:28","modified_gmt":"2022-04-05T11:55:28","slug":"helene-fauquet-resolution-in-space","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/2022\/04\/05\/helene-fauquet-resolution-in-space\/","title":{"rendered":"H\u00e9l\u00e8ne Fauquet, resolution in space"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

H\u00e9l\u00e8ne Fauquet refracts what\u2019s around. Her UV-prints on wood of found photographs show 1960s bubble mirrors and decorative stained glass in life-size with titles like \u201cDeviance as a Result of Stagnation\u201d, \u201cObscure Purpose\u201d and \u201cEcho\u201d. Fauquet interlocks a light spectrum and your presence in objects and prints. Her mirror dome-shaped glass sculptures morph as you relate to them on the floor of the gallery, your movement directing the reflected shapes. Everything becomes multifaceted as the light and geometry of her different surfaces cut up. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Fauquet\"
H\u00e9l\u00e8ne Fauquet, Monochrome<\/em>, 2020. UV Print on wood. 90 x 45 cm (35 3\/8 x 15 3\/4 inches). Courtesy of the artist; Guilty Pleasures, St.Moritz and Schiefe Z\u00e4hne, Berlin. Picture by Gina Folly. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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H\u00e9l\u00e8ne Fauquet, Untitled II<\/em>, 2017. Glass dome, silver mirror. 40 x 22 x 22 cm (15 3\/4 x 8 5\/8 x 8 5\/8 inches). Courtesy of the artist.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The cold stained glass\u2019 little edges magically deform as you navigate the environment through this prism. In Fauquet\u2019s prints, the single-point perspective true to photography, fixes a particular point from which to view the abstracted environment. Remember being a child in a stranger\u2019s house, face maybe pressed against the stained window, understanding the different trees that line the garden. There is a memory connotation to these windows, and a simple play of light, colour and geometry that attract the eye. Fauquet prints the objects in a one-to-one scale, showing them and their broken up, unidentifiable surroundings as they used to be. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Fauquet\"
Installation view of “Jenna Bliss, H\u00e9l\u00e8ne Fauquet, Jesper List Thomsen, Margherita Raso\u201d at Fanta-MLN, Milan, 2020. Courtesy: the artists; \u00c9douard Montassut, Paris; Fanta-MLN, Milan. Photo: Gina Folly.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

UV-rays on wood<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Working with found photographs, the artist remains somewhat enigmatic about their origin. Sometimes her titles are unsourced fragments too. Fauquet notes how \u201cthe geometric designs of stained glass are often a copy of a copy, to the point where their source is lost.\u201d She seems conscious of the image’s poor quality, and how it soaks into the wood of its support. She gestures a ray and pigment coming together on a surface. The technique of UV-printing is generally used for advertisement, as it allows printing on thicker materials. \u201cThe light gets fixed\u2014 rays of the image are fixed while printing them,\u201d says Fauquet, describing how the ink of the sometimes pixelated found picture spreads on and in the untreated wood, giving the images a velvety feel. <\/strong>Wood, as a chosen carrier for the images, serves as a primary paper and a classical screen. It also carries the reference of being a material used to block the view from a window. The patterns in the wood relate to the printed image and merge in prints that mimic the objects depicted. \u201cThey act more like props than trompe l’oeil<\/em>, as they sort of act for something else in the context of an exhibition space,\u201d says the artist. The longer our conversation on her practice continues, the more every component of her work becomes an origami of thoughts, elegantly folding in and on itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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He\u0301le\u0300ne Fauquet, Untitled (saturn rings II)<\/em>, Detail, 2020, UV print on wood, 40 x 40 cm. Courtesy: He\u0301le\u0300ne Fauquet and Schiefe Za\u0308hne, Berlin<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

There is a tactile quality to the prints; the ink melted in the soft wood, the temperature of the imagined touch of glass, the experience of the context we know these stained glass interiors from. She speaks of \u201cresolution in space\u201d, thinking of 60s pop bubbly mirrors as \u201csurfaces that cannot be printed\u201d. Her spheric mirror sculptures rendered fluid the exhibition space around it. Do we again see the object only through its surroundings? <\/strong>The element of extraction and reconstruction recurs in Fauquet\u2019s practice. Between the history of the depicted glass, its source, a possible edit, the interaction of the wood and the print, and their placement in an exhibition space: many subtle rearrangements and decisions are built upon the found image. Crossing over conceptual thinking on crafted decorative interior elements, the environment influences the form and vice-versa, both formally and otherwise. The non-neutrality of spaces and customised interiors are pointed out in the work. Printed this way, the compositions become somehow more legible. Their graphic aesthetics of some may remind you of Paul Klee and the 50\u2019s French animation Les Shadoks<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Waterglass exhibitions, associative arrangements<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The way Fauquet\u2019s works are arranged on the wall, more specifically in her last show monde ouvert<\/a><\/em> at \u00c9douard Montassut in Paris, is what she calls associative. They look like open computer files on a desktop. Hanging them at unexpected heights again changes the way we look at them and their geometry. They all the more lose their sheer window reference and instead appear \u201cas if they have their own rules and standards,\u201d as the artist says. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"H\u00e9l\u00e8ne\"
Installation view of H\u00e9l\u00e8ne Fauquet’s monde ouvert<\/em> at \u00c9douard Montassut, 2022. Courtesy of the artist and \u00c9douard Montassut.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Installation view of H\u00e9l\u00e8ne Fauquet’s monde ouvert<\/em> at \u00c9douard Montassut, 2022. Courtesy of the artist and \u00c9douard Montassut.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Her windows and sculptures render light and space in a painterly way, breaking up and blending gradient colours. They seem to capture the ambiance and time of day more than an actual outlook. This transformative quality also enhances the double vision their presence as objects brings in an exhibition\u2014 as we look at, through, with, and for. The texture of glass varies from water glass, iced granite, feathery textured glue chip or chord vertical lines. The bevelled and glass surfaces translate well in print, and all we see is broken-up light. The bubbly mirror prints recall a fascination one may be triggered having in a moment of hyper-awareness; existence becomes omnipresent, yet precisely situated, as if it were seen from the far edge of a room. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"H\u00e9l\u00e8ne
Exhibition poster of H\u00e9l\u00e8ne Fauquet’s monde ouvert<\/em> at \u00c9douard Montassut, 2022. Courtesy of the artist and \u00c9douard Montassut.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"H\u00e9l\u00e8ne
H\u00e9l\u00e8ne Fauquet, Undecided<\/em>, 2022. UV print on wood. 44 x 44.6 x 1.2 cm 17 1\/2 x 17 1\/2 x 1\/2 in. Unique. Courtesy of the artist and \u00c9douard Montassut.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In monde ouvert<\/em>, the exhibition poster is presented in and as part of the show. This is when all components that make up Fauquet\u2019s work start to whirl and wire, connecting pieces. On the poster there are images of agricultural equipment and primary tools to cultivate the earth; tools to open a pass. They are taken from an educational and decorative display outside a house that operated as an open air museum. The tools and their displacement on the poster (and the poster itself being part of the exhibition), again bear thoughts on function, reproduction and representation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How much of Fauquet\u2019s practice is about tracing back: how is reading different from retracing and retracting from imagining? Her artwork is ultimately a knot of moving body, two-eyed head, monocled camera and omnipresent surroundings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reflective things absorbing light and soft surroundings: an open-ended reading of the work of H\u00e9l\u00e8ne Fauquet<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":114300,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1793],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-114302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-to-be-discovered"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=114302"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114302\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/114300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=114302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=114302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=114302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}