Ariane Fruit shows all her talents at Documents 15
Drawings, pastels, etchings, pinhole photography, Ariane Fruit has developed over the years an immense curiosity for various mediums and her new exhibition at Documents 15 which coincides with PhotoSaintGermain 5-28 November, shows the extent of her talent. After a wonderful retrospective at l’Isle Adam last April, which included scenes of Gare Saint Lazare, she created a whole new series a pinhole camera, a traditional photographic process she is exploring for the first time with analog film. The very slow process gives a little blur to the pictures and her scenes of water and foliage, moving slightly, are very mysterious.
Her pastel of a swimming pool in l’Isle Adam is quite extraordinary in color and drawing, but I will always remember her “Crime scene” of 2018 where she printed a large artificial crime scene on a Lino floor. Trained as a photographer, she used the subway as her favorite research ground and now beaches of Normandy. Here, her superior technique of black and white is declined in lithographs for “Low Tide” and “High Tide”, the landscapes she finds on the beaches of Veules Les Roses, Grainval, Vasterival, Sotteville sur Mer, Senneville sur Fécamp or Saint Martin en Campagne, and the pinholes she photographs in the forests of Versailles or Chantilly. The cliffs tend to break apart and some of the stones are lying on the cobbles creating true decors.
All the artists of the gallery, Jean Baptiste Sécheret, Gustave de Stäel, Astrid de la Forest, Martin Basdevant, Erik Desmazières… have in common (besides their huge talent) a poetry and a modesty that I admire, and Ariane Fruit is a perfect example of great technic in the printing process and sensitivity in the way she treats her landscapes. Some beaches are photographed and also drawn and as you will notice anyone can afford her drawings and photographs from 400 € to 6 200€.
Until November 21, 15 rue de l’Echaudé.
