From 14 September to 8 October 2022
Galerie Les Yeux Fertiles, 27 rue de Seine, Paris 6e
Opening on Wednesday 14 September 2022
Ody Saban opens a new dream door in her enchanted Surrealist universe.
Here, the vegetation has not finished sparkling. Nor have the hybrid beings finished bringing dizzying ecosystems into bloom. Nor has the taste of water finished merging with the blue beyond of the sky…
But Ody’s forests and oceans feel themselves offered to assemblies of women. The constant aim of these vast gatherings seems to be to combine visual poetry with tactile, kinaesthetic, olfactory and gently sonorous poetry.
The precise, circumstantial aims of these very freely structured human groupings are, however, openly displayed, as the titles of the works show. They include, for example, “bringing pearly volcanoes to birth”, “sublimating the most intense fires”, “marrying erotic music with birdsong”, learning the gestures and words so that “elephants and albatrosses tame one another”, taking over the “Sun Boat”, and initiating so many other indispensable collective acts.
To this end, images are exchanged directly on the skin, with caresses, dances and songs. Women and their desires are in motion.
Within the feminism of immediate necessity and revolutionary will there appears, as far as the eye can see, a feminist Surrealism. Here, a dazzling freedom. Perfumes to embellish dreams. Civilisations nourished on the milk of lightning.
As often with Ody Saban, the more naive and almost simply narrative the works appear, the more complex the identity of the characters and their relationships with life and the universe become. At the same time, the relationships between materials, perspectives, lights, colours, forms and movements grow subtler and blur, so as to unsettle us.
Although the creator of these naked lives takes us by the hand, it is impossible to “take in” these works in full. Their mythological and utopian dimensions and their instinctual power cannot but resonate within us, brushing against our own hearts, which we suddenly perceive to be packed with explosives.
Here, lucid intoxication and the passionate search for meaning feed one another. We are warmly invited to contribute to this vast movement of growth. With Ody Saban, accompanied by the irruption and calm insurrection of her sisters, this is not difficult. To begin venturing into the volcanic, fertile lands of these tales with their infinite ramifications, one need only be there and half-open, open or close one’s eyes.
There will also be several “unique artist’s books” drawn from Ody Saban’s magic library. And other marvels.
Thomas Mordant, April 2022
Talks
- Thursday 22 September 2022 at 6 pm: talk with Thomas Mordant on the relationship between Ody Saban’s life and her art. Where do these “Tender Assemblies of Women” and the utopias they carry come from? Where does all this nature that illuminates the works spring from? How did these silk papers come into being?
- Thursday 29 September 2022 at 6 pm: second talk with Thomas Mordant, on the techniques discovered by the artist (new formulas of pictorial automatism) and on Ody’s states of mind when, through her painting, she offers us this dreamlike intensity that opens onto greater lucidity.
- Thursday 6 October 2022, 6 to 7.30 pm: presentation of Joë Bousquet’s book Imagination, with 18 imaginary portraits and an original drawing by Ody Saban. Remarks on the three texts by Ody Saban, production of the book by Pierre Walunski, introduction to the drawings by Thomas Mordant.
Ody Saban also features in issue 3 of the Surrealist review Alcheringa (summer 2022).
Artist: Ody Saban