“Mother Earth”

Solo exhibition of the French artist, Julie Alegre, curated by Conchi Álvarez.

This is the artist’s third solo show at the STOA gallery.

Its title refers to one of the most ancient cults and beliefs through which, as a goddess of motherhood as well in many cultures, Mother Earth is associated with fertility.  Her different advocations and manifestations bear witness to her universality and her timelessness:  the Neolithic Potnia Theron, the Sumerian Tiamat, the Chaldean Ishtar, the Syro-Phoenician Astarte, the Greek Aphrodite, the Roman Demeter, the classic Gaia, the Inca Pachamama… , a cult as old as mankind itself, that has been a source of inspiration to artists, possibly since the Venus figurines of the Paleolithic, and which is undoubtedly one of the recurrent themes in Julie’s artistic imagery.

Indeed, this original creator -recently acknowledged by one of the Florence Biennale Awards- has been working intermittently on this theme for years, with exceptionally personal results and outstandingly original works.  Julie’s version of Mother Earth favours one particular location:  the Mediterranean,  a region that is far more than just the crucible of the people that sowed the seeds of western civilisation.  In this sample, the painter’s eyes wander over different corners of the earth, depicting a whole universe of mother earths.  Her technique, painting with ink on paper, bears a trademark all of its own, leading to a well-defined style, a style in which the colours are intense -the result of highly pigmented inks- alternating, in some cases, with transparent and inspiring washes, which as they merge give rise to mystic environs, eminently suitable as a habitat for Mother Earth.  The shape and form in her paintings stem from the disintegration of ideas into tesserae, juxtaposed in a beautiful and apparent disorder, seemingly reminiscent of the composition of Byzantine mosaics, Klimt-like backgrounds, Miro´s ambiences, or Matisse’s cut-outs.  It is from such sources of inspiration and her own childhood experiences -a fusion of some years spent in Algeria and Southern France-, that Julie condenses her thoughts and distils her inks, which have a style all of her own and an originality only achieved by some artists.