If you are in the London area, please make sure you visit my lovely friend Maud Traon first solo exhibition!.. I’m super excited and proud of all her work and hope you can see it!
MAUD TRAON – HOME SWEET HOME
Studio 106
106 Dawes Road, Fulham, London SW6 7EG
020 7385 5618 / info@studio106artgallery.org
www.studio106artgallery.org
18th November 2011 – 17th December 2011
Private View: Thursday 17th November 2011, 6:30pm
Gallery open Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday 12.00 to 18.00
“Abstraction today is no longer that of the map, the double, the mirror or the concept. Simulation is no longer that of a territory, a referential being or a substance.”
Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulations
Studio 106 Art Gallery is delighted to announce the first solo exhibition of Maud Traon, Home Sweet Home.
Maud Traon develops fantasy aesthetics, creating confusion between fiction and reality. De facto, she challenges and transgresses widely accepted ideas in art. Home Sweet Home marks a significant shift from her crafts practice (Traon is an established jewellery maker) to Visual Art.
Traon’s work has never fitted comfortably in either context, but always leads her viewers to unexpected outcomes. Her viewers’ journey is literally about looking for a needle in a haystack, with the exciting possibility of actually finding a treasure. We need to find our way through a maze of an intense, almost suffocating use of colours, glitter, images and ideas.
The use of exuberant material is an attempt to conceal what obsesses her, what attracts her, and allows her to be creative. Indeed, far from trying to give instant meaning with an instant coffee taste, she gives a new role to the viewer, compelling them to decipher her work. Surely ambiguous, the newly-made installations mix popular references such as tourists glorifications - fake snow balls or magnets depicting monuments- with philosophical theory, clearly referencing Virilio, Baudrillard and Deleuze. For instance, relating the “visual universe” of pizza Flyers to Renaissance Matthias Grunewald’s Retable of Issenheim.
Through a poignant and colourful aesthetics of fairy tales, Traon narrates a story of psychological anxieties and a need for immediate beauty consumption. Singular yet universal, her rich visual and intellectual imagery guides us through a personal and dazing journey.
With Home Sweet Home, Traon finds her way back to childhood; at the same time, she conveys an infatuation for bright colours, made up characters, objects and playful games. On the other hand, she expresses a sweet and naive need for bewilderment. Framed by a childish yet complex intellectual rigour, she asks and asks again: What does it mean, daddy?
Maud Traon lives and works in London. Traon’s work explores the relationship between the reality of the world we live in and the signs and symbols that actually represent it. Unusual scales and overlapping references from both the worlds of crafts and Visual arts show her fascination about consumerism, mainstream and kitsch visual universes. Past exhibitions include Jerwood Contemporary Makers (London) 2010, COLLECT (London) 2009 & 1010, The “AKA Project” (London, Rome„ San Francisco, Oberstein, Sweden, Paris). Past awards include Nicole Stöber Award and Thames & Hudson Prize.
Studio 106 Art Gallery is a Not-for-profit organisation that provides a platform to explore, create and present contemporary art and new forms of expression. We focus on researching and developing collaborative processes inherent to art-making and generating dialogues across: generations, cultures, and the relationship between art and the audience. Studio 106 Art Gallery programmes Live Art, exhibitions, screenings, forums, artists’ talks and workshops. Home Sweet Home is part of Pivotal Shifts, a project supported by The Arts Council England, London.