While Vanessa Fanuele’s paintings are based on strongly constructed images, with architectural motifs that underpin their potential as shelters, she also, by contrast, presents a whole range of buildings on the verge of collapse. With broad brushstrokes that shake up the space and the iconic field, and a play of transparent colours in vespertine tones that accentuate their virtual fragility. The result is something very close to the generic idea of a set, a balance between a funny situation – reminiscent of burlesque cinema – and a human drama – a direct evocation of natural disasters. Conversely, her installation, in the image of “stalls covered with sheets, fabrics and carpets on which the patina and traces of time merge with faded patterns,” suggests the possibility of retreat as a means of survival. (extract from the text by Philippe Piguet commisaire)
