Memory. Surface. Landscape. Desire.
Do words have souls? Artist Anne Cherix examines the secret lives of words in her exhibition MOTUS, which is on show at the Visual Voice Art Gallery until February 9, 2008.

top left: “Fantasie pour les jardins de Locus Solus”, top right: “Suite pour une mémoire corporée”, bottom left: “Les vacances de Magritte”, bottom right: “Le temps du paraxode”

Anne works in a variety of media: installation, sculpture, photography, and drawing. For each art piece she selects a medium which is perfectly suited for the chosen word’s inner resonance. For the word mémoire (memory) for example, Anne created a series of drawings. She drew the word mémoire over and over again on sheets of acetate, in coloured pencil, in ink, and in paint. She then selected several acetates and layered them on top of each other, super-imposing the word onto itself. The mémoire series speaks of of loss, of change, and of preserving an essential truth.
The word surface is represented in three dimensions. Anne cut the word ‘surface’ out of transparent plexiglas several times and placed the words onto each other, creating a ‘word cube’. This object is attached to vertical plane of black plexiglass, suspending the words in mid-air. Underneath the word cube Anne installed a shelf on which she placed a small pile of sand which holds a thin sheet of water. Because the sand is extremely fine and dry the water rolls up on its sides like a huge drop, making it appear three-dimensional. The word “surface” is reflected both in the water and on the black plexiglass shelf. This sculpture creates a delightful paradox about the “depth” of surface.

Visual Voice Art Gallery
space 421
Anne Cherix
MOTUS
exhibition dates: January 31 – February 9, 2008
www.visualvoicegallery.com