The exhibition was organized by the Fund Forum and Victor Hugo French Cultural Centre. The exhibition will conclude on 14 October, the last day of the Art Week Style.Uz-2010.
Born in 1950 in Ivry (northern France), Catherine Metais lives and works in Saint-Martin-de-Ré, a commune on an island off the west coast of France. She spent a long time in Berlin, where she participated in a host of exhibitions along with other artists. Her solo exhibitions have also been housed in showrooms in France, UK, Ukraine, South Korea and Turkmenistan.
While the titles of Catherine Metais’ photos are laconic, her creations are laden with the author’s emotions: “The Fairy”, “Look at the Flower”, “Waiting”, “Find the Way”, “Angel” and so on.
Mademoiselle Metais once said of her works: “When I was sleeping, my eyes saw a flame. This fire leads me, and I spread it through photos…”
Asked in an interview how a photograph, as a material substance, can convey the movement of a cloud, the shivering of water in a cold autumn or a human waiting for light, she said: “It is the “fire” of the camera flash which sets your heart racing for a moment while photography, as a spiritual substance that mysteriously made its way into our material world, renders viewers’ senses “sweetly intoxicated”. THIS, she believes, breathes life into our world.
“To showcase your work is like putting an end and asking yourself about its forms, themes, their implications, purposes, and your work’s place in the artistic environment. I have come to realise that my works are changeable but at the same time they possess an inner logic… They [my works] are changeable because they convey my “nomadic” nature. I spent a long time in Berlin, some time in London, I’ve had short stays in Kiev and Seoul, and then I returned to the “country” where I have now lived for several years. But I now feel there are new horizons awaiting me in the east and the west … They are changeable because each horizon has been reflected in the forms and materials I have used. They are joined by new skills and new landscapes which have left a trace in my memory, new life concepts and new visions. There are so many things which fit in with what can be described as artistic work that refuse to be just “products” and push me to study and experiment. If there are famous thought-provoking words that I identify with, they are Charles Baudelaire’s verses: Free man, you will always cherish the sea! The sea is your mirror; you contemplate your soul in the infinite unrolling of its billows…”, she said.
Catherine Metais’ works will also be on display at the “Signs of Time” International Exhibition of Contemporary Art to be held as part of the Art Week “Style.Uz 2010”.