MIRAGES

Cour vitrée of Beaux-Arts, Paris, France
June 2021
 

“I paint portraits of landscapes,” announces Laury Denoyes. Although “portrait” and “landscape” are often seen as distinct notions, the artist deliberately portrays nature — more specifically, mountains and forests — treating it as the fundamental subject of her practice. Fundamental, because since childhood, Laury Denoyes has walked the same land in her native garden, the Basque Country, and always returns to it after her many journeys, which have taken her as far as the Land of Morning Calm. From her travels in Asia, primarily, she returns with a backpack full of memories — but above all, new materials to experiment with, in order to magnify her future nature's portraits. This is how Korean silk crossed her path and followed her back to her studio in France, where she now works the textile by stretching it over a frame using a little-known and rarely practiced technique: handmade wheat paste glue.
 

This process, respectful of both the medium and of life, constitutes the first step in bringing forth an immaculate landscape, soon revealed through the application of water-based colors on this translucent skin. First, a detail emerges from the tip of the brush in the center of the composition; then, through a succession of contrasts, verdant peaks take shape, notably those of La Rhune or the Trois Couronnes, whose ridgelines sketch the figure of a reclining character between sky and earth.
 

The approach is sincere, free from embellishment, simply conveying a living world that exists today, but whose future persistence remains uncertain. This fragility, made palpable by the spectral quality of the medium, acts like a ghost that haunts each landscape.
 

— Anne-Laure Peressin, for the Editions of the Beaux-Arts de Paris