Exhibition “The Nature of remaining time” by Anne Laval

Exhibition

Virtual visit

Visual copyright Vincent Connetable 2023.

“La Nature du temps qui reste” by Anne Laval is an exhibition combining sculptures, installations and drawings inspired by the artist’s sensations of her relationship with the landscape and nature, giving her the opportunity to develop her thoughts on our ways of being in the world and how to respect our environment. His view of nature, the river and its surrounding countryside, allows us to think about ourselves as human beings.
Using sculptural materials (metal, porcelain, fabric….) in strange forms (thread, fibre, gauze ….), she redraws the contours of an evocative world, a forgotten, even ghostly nature.
On a map, the Loire river reveals the smaller rivers that join it in a tree-like structure.
The configuration of the tree is very present in the artist’s work because it joins other living traces, those of vegetation and watercourses but also those of the interior of our body (blood system, lymphatic…). These forms are like the inscription of a universal DNA, something that reminds us that we are all from the same world.
In this exhibition, the artist presents her work on “Les Cartes fantômes” (Ghost maps), the result of an intimate thought process that draws on the play of light that nature offers us.
The Loire river plays with the shadows that unfold in more subtle reflections. To bring them to life, Anne Laval sculpts shiny, dark stainless steel gauze, which, when heated with a blowtorch, reveals iridescent metallic colours of copper or gold, similar to those of beetles. The sculptures, positioned on the wall, trace the space around us. On their surfaces, we can see the tree-like movement of a river on a map.
The suspended “Paysages perdus” (Lost landscapes) remind us of the currents and mounds of sand that run along the long path of the emblematic Loire river.
They fly over space just as the river does.
In this context, the drawings on display play back and forth with the volumes, one feeding off the other in a fertile dialogue.
Finally, the installation “Forêt d’ossements” (Forest of Bones) evokes the snow-covered trees on the banks of the water, plunging the viewer into an imaginary, almost evanescent world, nourished by the artist’s feelings about nature. Anne Laval is particularly fond of the winter period, when nature lies dormant, as if left to die before being reborn. The skies are misty and cloudy. The bodies of naked trees are reflected in the water, halos of sand appear and snow settles on the branches. The branches disguise themselves, becoming delicate bones dancing in space.

Without being literal, the artist’s work paints a portrait of nature without evoking a fixed form, allowing the viewer to rediscover sensations that may have been lost. You think you recognise what you’ve already seen.
To remain humble in the face of nature, which still has so much to teach us, we need to listen and see rather than take.