Discover the contemporary work of Catherine Hélie
For about thirty years, she has been working on pictorial work that is essentially associated with paper and ink. Black and white ink from the beginning; color, more recently. Work that she preferred not to show at first, except on the occasion of a few rare group exhibitions (Draveil, Fresnes, Courbevoie, late 90s). Which only took the form of solo exhibitions from 2003: Galerie Mantoux-Gignac (Paris), Galerie Alain Couturier (Nice), Galerie Daniel Duchoze (Rouen), Eglise Saint-Ouen de Longpaon. (Darnétal, « Rencontres : des lieux, des artistes, Agglomération de Rouen »). Her recent professional activity (portrait photographer of writers at Éditions Gallimard) put a temporary end to it.
She also carries out precise and concerted photographic work: striving to make « appear » and see « exterior » sculpture – sculpture considered « poor » or « minor » – altered by time and bad weather. Funerary sculpture (the cemeteries of Paris), ornamental (the caryatids), or religious (the calvaries of Brittany), old dolls...
ŒWorks on several levels, or having gone through several stages. Initially, simple plaster molds but for future monumental and public sculptures. Second stage, relegated, piled up and left without care in a shed unable to protect them (partly exposed to the elements). Photographed again, third stage, and with no other pretext at first than to give them to see them as they have become (Catherine Hélie has practiced a lot of photography of poor or minor sculptures: funerary monuments, caryatids, etc. altered by all sorts of possible erosions). Finally printed on paper and mounted on cardboard (in variable formats: 30x40 cm, 50x70 cm and 100 x 70 cm) and augmented, by her, fourth and last stage, with collages painted on transparent sheets.
