"Pig Sole"
Célia Boulesteix, Victor Unwin
curated by Simon Gérard
The works of Célia Boulesteix and Victor Unwin mobilize a porous conceptual material, in the sense that the images, forms and materials invoked still contain enough emptiness within them to welcome the imagination of whoever might look into them. Engraved, pasted or transferred photographs are like free memories, belonging to anyone who identifies with them; the materials mobilized evoke spaces and concepts both distant and familiar; each of the assemblages that make up the work is like a text with holes left deliberately incomplete, or a redacted document of which we accept the hidden part.
Unwin and Boulesteix camp their work in the reassuring coolness of shadows. Against a reality that is too legible, too clear, too smooth, no longer allowing for imagination in its system, the two artists advocate a return to the Platonic cave. There, the distant, flickering light casts blurred shapes with indecisive contours, which, while failing to say precisely what reality is, invite us to suggest what it might be for us.
Even down to its title, "Pig Sole" exploits this happy indeterminacy. Far from stemming from a compartmentalizing hermeticism, the work of both artists mobilizes a generous form of symbolism, opening up to a constellation of narratives.
Simon Gérard
Victor Unwin (b. 1994 in Pontoise, France) is an artist based in Paris. He began his career as a filmmaker and artistic director. In 2020 he shifted to a more personal artistic practice, based on video experimentations, nonlinear narratives, acousmatic compositions and research-based sculptural production.
From a series of unfinished fictional movies recorded on old VHS tapes, to a set of photographs engraved on black anodized aluminum slabs, Unwin finds meaning in the production processes of his works. In a dialogue between DIY techniques and new technologies, found footage and personal images, he develops an eclectic set of works aiming to tell stories and share feelings in unconventional ways.
Victor Unwin
Detail from METAL SLABS (WHITE TRASH), 2024
Engraved anodized aluminium slab
4 x 5 7/8 inches
Born in France in 1996, Célia Boulesteix lives and works in Paris. She graduated from the Duperré School in 2019.
In contemporary commons spaces, Célia collects objects, materials and other fragments of reality - encounters that can arouse emotions akin to epiphany. Drawing as much on photography as sculpture, her aesthetic vocabulary revolves around the anti-monumental and the intimate, the better to open up to sensitive, subjective forms and narratives.
Célia Boulesteix
Photographie trouvée dans les décombres d’un incendie, 2024