Jeanne Susplugas "Living in my head"

La Patinoire Royale / Galerie Valérie Bach is very pleased to present the third solo show of Jeanne Susplugas, at the first level of the gallery. Here are some perspectives to understand the universe of this artist, who doesn't stop underlining what she calls "the distortions of life".

For this exhibition, Jeanne Susplugas features works made from various mediums. According to her, the choice of the medium matters less than her reflection, rooted in multiple influences from literature to cinema. She also adapts a place – the exhibition space – to evoke the house. This place of intimacy that both protects and alienates us, and which figures at the heart of her interrogation. Here, wallpaper painted with toxic flowers on which some drawings hung; there, a Remarkable Alarm Clock that goes off only at symmetrical times (12:12, 13:13, 22:22…). Here again, the Still Lives made of white ceramic remind us of our habitus, slipping blister packs of pills into bowls of fruits.

Jeanne Susplugas exhibits her new series of drawings In My Brain: at a time of artificial neural networks, these naive and playful-like "neuro-portraits", reveal the object of our happiest and darkest thoughts. This series is clearly in line with the Flying Houses. The artist emphasizes with humor and distance the thoughts that haunt our neurons and shape our identity.

To tame thoughts which are sometimes too invasive, she proposes Disco Ball, a sculpture designed on the model of the disco mirror ball taking the three-dimensional form of the chemical formula of bromazepam – a strong anxiolytic also known for its hypnotic qualities. This diversion recalls the artist's interest regarding the question of addictions and dependencies: the work illustrates, in a very explicit way, the flow of legal and illegal drugs in the festive evenings of nightlife – not to forget that in the US and Canada bromazepam is considered a narcotic whose procurement conditions are very regulated.

In the exhibition, the artist also offers an alternative to the dance with the picture of an ephemeral or permanent tattoo, to be for a few hours or forever "under control" (Tattoo). Control that we insidiously find in the Mind Mapping series: as many chemical formula which map our lives, between guides and social injunctions. Jeanne Susplugas explores the impact of our heritage in our relationship to self and to others. She meticulously sounds out the distortions of a brutal and dysfunctional society that provokes a professional and collective unease. Her work appears as many little forms and strategies of resistance and of survival against the individualism, the cowardice, the manipulation or the violence.

Biography of the artist

Born in Montpellier, Jeanne Susplugas lives and works in Paris.

Her work has been shown in the KW Institute for Contemporary Art (Berlin), at Pioneer Works (Brooklyn, New York), at the Emily Harvey Foundation (New York), at the Villa Medicis (Rome), at the Palais de Tokyo (Paris), at the Fresnoy National Studio (Tourcoing), at the Musée d'Art Moderne of Saint-Etienne, at the Maison Rouge – Fondation Antoine de Galbert (Paris), at the Musée de Grenoble, and at events like the Dublin-Contemporary, the Biennale of Alexandria (Caire) or at the Nuit Blanche (Paris).

Her movies have been presented during Festivals as Hors Pistes (Centre Pompidou, Paris), Locarno International Film Festival, Miami International Film Festival, Les Instants Vidéos (Marseille) or even Les Rencontres Internationales (Paris/Berlin/Madrid).