Julie Beaufils
For her second solo show at the gallery, Beaufils presents new paintings, drawings, and posters.
Visualisations (2016) comprises two quadriptychs of large-scale abstract oil paintings. Each of the eight canvasses contains a variation of a deformed circle that fills the frame. These minimal black and white circular forms are painted in broad gestural strokes that resemble graffiti. While non-representational, these shapes suggest elements such as fragmented breasts, unfinished logos, developing sex organs, cellular mutations, and amorphous organic tissue, ali things in the process of formation. The term Visualisations refers to the therapeutic exercise whereby a patient imagines scenes of her desired future. In these paintings, the emergent forms possess infinite possibilities for what they might become. In the middle of the gallery stand four boxes containing rows of small ink drawings in plastic sleeves which the visitors can leaf through and pull out like records or magazines. These comic book-like sketches show portions of female bodies, featureless male characters, speechless speech bubbles, and empty trademarks. Similar to Visua/isations, these subjects' identities and narratives are left open-ended. Moreover, as the title of the series, DIY, implies the drawings can be rearranged in infinitely new combinations making it possible for the viewer to create her own scenarios.
Auras (2016), a series of figurative oil paintings, show scenes from a popular television series for teens that carne on after school in the nineties. The show followed the lives of spirited high school students who never seemed to have to go to class or deal with their parents. Beaufils painted these scenes from screenshots of youtube clips on her iPhone. Using soft brushstrokes and a muted palette, the artist depicts the young characters in heightened moments of fun and love. The fluidity of the brushwork creates the sensation that these instants are fleeting. Thick white globs of paint block out parts of the images signifying lapses of memory as well as teenage obsessions such as bodily fluids, blemish cream, and hair gel. Hung throughout the space posters bearing slogans were inspired by the anti-drug and safe-sex advertisements seen during extracurricular activities. But these messages, which state poetic affirmations such as "DEEP TRIP » and "OFF", do not promote or communicate anything except the abandon and passion of youth. Such works reflect upon adolescence, but it needs to be made clear : this is not nostalgia nor a mourning for a lost ideai time. To the contrary, Beaufils reveals the power of imagery to reinvigorate those singular points in your life when you felt you could go in any direction, when the future was without limits. The title of the exhibition, "Cadors" meaning "big shot" makes this clear. These works evoke those free spaces, moments after school, after work, just hanging out, watching t.v., thumbing through records, daydreaming. They give form to feelings, floating and disembodied, but thrilling nonetheless.
- Zoe Stillpass
