"Pig Sole"
Célia Boulesteix, Victor Unwin
curated by Simon Gérard

The works of Célia Boulesteix and Victor Unwin are porous: the images, forms, and materials they compose with still contain enough void to host the imagination of anyone who might engage with them. The engraved, printed, or transferred images are like free memories, belonging to anyone identifying with them. The materials and forms evoke both distant and familiar spaces and objects. Each work is like a fill-in-the-blank text intentionally left incomplete, or a blue-pencilled document where the hidden parts are tolerated and desired.

Unwin and Boulesteix ground their work in the reassuring coolness of shadows. Against a reality that is too readable, too clear, too smooth, in a system that grants a minimal role to the imagination, both artists advocate for a return to the Platonic cave. There, the distant and flickering light casts blurry forms and vague outlines which, instead of precisely describing reality, invites us to suggest what it could be for us.

However, the works exhibited here do not stem from a form of automatic writing whose keystone would only be found in the artists' deep unconscious. Célia Boulesteix composes her works like narratives — but these only exist in fragmentary form, resembling heuristic diagrams. In his works, Victor Unwin generates systems of meaning arising from complex protocols — but these also contain an element of unpredictability, like a human pause outside a mathematical equation.

Even in its title, the exhibition "Pig Sole" explores these happy unknowns. Far from partaking in an isolating hermeticism, the work of both artists mobilizes a form of generous symbolism, widening into 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
Guys like you, 2024
Engraved aluminium slab
2 x 3 inches

Born in 1996 in Limoges, Célia Boulesteix lives and works in Paris. She graduated from Ecole Duperré in 2019.

Her artistic practice combines sculpture and image in artworks and installations combining a wide variety of techniques and materials. Seemingly imbued with gravity and melancholy, Célia Boulesteix's compositions in fact reflect a profound desire to change the way to look at reality and to explore its invisible narratives, whether they are historical, metaphysical or intimate.

Célia Boulesteix
Fwd :
eu de nouvelles depuis longtemps, ne t’inquiète pas,
que le temps manque. Tu auras la preuve que je ne me prélasse plus
en discothèque
ouvre
encore
verras le vrai
et puis Voilà !, 2024
Latex, acrylic paint, spray paint, recycled paper, walnut stain, ripstop, pearls, coton thread
48 7/8 x 35 3/8 x 2 inches

Célia Boulesteix, Victor Unwin → Pig Sole