After studying textile design at the Duperré school in Paris, Hélène Duclos embarked on a six-month trip on a small sailboat from Vannes to Dakar.
Back in France in 1996, she moved to Montpellier, joined the collective of visual artists “Arboretum” and began to paint. Then she co-founded Cairn et Compagnie, a live performance company in which she designed costumes and sets. Her plastic research gives birth to installations. Her meeting in 1999 with the painter Hélène Laflamme was decisive.
Welcomed in her studio in Crest, in the Drôme, she benefited from her teaching and learned the ancient techniques of oil painting on coated wood. She decided to devote herself to painting: the work of color, material and surfaces fed a mysterious and vast creative process.
She completed this training with Xuan Chieu, master lacquerer in Vietnam in 2003.
Gradually she developped a singular language that gradually extend into the field of painting, drawing, engraving and contemporary embroidery.
Through her work we observe the relationships between human beings, between love and heartbreak, between wild animals and various creatures, metaphors for our desires, our fears. Her work is profuse, complex. It extends over different supports and scales: from miniature to very large format.
The fantastic story of the liquid mountain
Galerie Claire Corcia, September-October 2022
“The liquid mountain is populated by living beings with a vegetable heart. They roam freely (it seems to us *) between the earth and the air in search of their roots. They bathe and transform in liquid crystal ponds. In the distance, floating mountains move from dry to wet areas and tree plants grow where advised. The liquid mountain is sometimes red like blood, like fire, sometimes yellow like lemon or blue like cobalt or ultramarine. It is unstable, like the seasons.” Hélène Duclos, July 2022
For several years, Hélène Duclos has been exploring this curious country, night and day. The Claire Corcia gallery will show on the occasion of this exhibition a set of unpublished paintings and drawings made from nature.
*The hypothesis of freedom remains to be verified.
An architecture of vertigo, tragedy and comedy
Immersion in a painted, embroidered, drawn work
“I walked fast.
I wanted white, gray, like steam. All steam.
In the gray, when we linger we perceive. We drill.
It’s always amazing.
I wanted that.
And then the characters move on. The more they advance, the less they are fooled. Less harsh. Like a form of presence that no longer has a body. At least not the body we assume. Against their will.
We would like to follow them, but they evaporate. Exactly. In gray or white. Sometimes very black too.
I always act by touch, in the amazement of the color that is born. It’s so strong, don’t you believe me?
And then I erase, I incorporate, I scrape, I imagine. It’s quite complicated.
I come back with a tool from my grandfather in hardened steel. That’s how I write, I engrave, I heal.
It doesn’t last very long.
Much much less time than all those months making the gray and all those shades.
I have a lot to say. Finally to paint. But also to say. And I will tell you. But not like that”. Hélène Duclos, June 2015
From near to far, the tumults are there, the storms, the calms, the dread, the peoples and the pythies, the discreet humor, the displacements, the faults in the immensity, the hoarse, scraped materials, the slippery territories, perditions, rediscoveries and judgments.
The grotesque and the carnival. The migrations, the minute details. The delicate. The fine and powerful sensuality of a singular work with multiple accents.
Hélène Duclos depicts an epic human fable placing man back at the center of the chaos of the universe. It brings man, child and animal closer together and offers a bittersweet reading, realizing an inner journey built in transparency that tries to reconnect beings.
About the delicacy
“The stories heard in my youth and the objects brought back from Vietnam are important elements in the construction of my imagination and my creativity. »
“I like finesse, the miniature, the imperceptible. I seek in these dimensions, the remarkable, the extraordinary. This sometimes causes dizzying sensations as when something opens up and frees up space to receive something new.
I particularly like very fine tools, I even look for them and I make large and small formats. I am interested in comparing scales and showing that the smallest detail is important for harmony and balance. » explains Hélène Duclos.
2022
Hors champs– Galerie Florence B – Noirmoutiers
Aire de jeux – Espace Mira – Nantes
(édition d’un foulard en soie, 50 exemplaires)
La fantastique histoire de la montagne liquide – Galerie Claire Corcia – Paris
2021
Prendre les grands virages – Galerie Claire Corcia – Paris
2020
Chamanes – Galerie Olivier Rousseau – Tours
2019
Plan d’occupation des sols – Galerie le Rayon vert — Nantes
2018
Le champ des possibles – Galerie Olivier Rousseau – Tours
Galerie Claire Corcia – Paris
Galerie Jérôme B – Bordeaux
2017
Musée de la Perrine – Laval
Galerie Le Rayon vert – Nantes
2016
Cycle des répercussions – Galerie Olivier Rousseau – Tours
Galerie Christine Colon – Liège, Belgique
2014
En longeant la rive – Galerie Olivier Rousseau – Tours
Galerie Espace Liberté – Crest
Galerie Balthazar – Clermont-Ferrand
2013
Galerie Théo de Seine – Paris
Galerie Le Réalgar – St-Etienne
La Grande Galerie – Montélimar
2012
Invité d’honneur aux 20 ans du Salon Puls’art, Le Mans
2011
Galerie Balthazar, Clermont-Ferrandon, Malaucène
2010
Opéra de Lyon – France
Galerie Alain Rouzé – Nantes
Galerie L’arbre de Vie – Mirabel et Blacons (Drôme)
2009
Galerie Au-delà des apparences – Annecy
2008
Art Prise de tête – Romans sur Isère- Drôme
2007
Galerie Ardital – Aix-en-Provence
Galerie Polad-Hardouin / idées d’artistes – Paris
Galerie Le Soleil sur la Place – Lyon
2006
Espace Liberté – Crest –Drôme
2005
Galerie du Château – Vence – Alpes Maritimes
Galerie Cupillard – Grenoble – Isère
2004
Galerie Prise de tête – Romans – Drôme
2003
Galerie du Château – Vence – Alpes Maritimes
2002
Galerie Haus Herbede – Witten – Allemagne
2001
Médiathèque – Montélimar – Drôme
Art’aime – Monvendre – Drôme
2000
Galerie du Port – Crest – Drôme
Prix : Premier prix du cadre d’or, Oddo et Cie, Paris
2015
“32 artistes, le fil, le rouge”, Collectif Fiber Art Fever, Manufacture de Flandres, Roubaix
“Salon de l’Aiguille en fête, Collectif Fiber Art Fever, Paris
2014
Galerie l’âne bleu, Marciac (31)
D’une Aube à l’autre, Association Rémanence, La Galerie, Auvers sur Oise
Galerie Picot-Le Roy,-Morgat (29)
Genèse I, Association Rémanence, Galerie Schwab-Beaubourg, Paris
Genèse II, Association Rémanence, Fondation Taylor
