THE NIGHT LIGHT
“Elise Bergonzi is fascinated by objects and their multiple forms. Through mouldings and variations in ceramic, plaster or latex, she plays with their reality by mixing their essence, their capacity to evoke the everyday objects they imitate, and their present existence. In doing so, she constantly moves back and forward between the universal and the intimate, between the familiar and the uncanny, combining them in carefully constructed settings. In these in-betweens, there is a narrative that the different elements seem to tell each other: that of the passing of time, of matter that erodes, and of the trace that these objects leave in our memories.”
Text by Alexandre Montina, curator for the exhibition “Deuxième étoile à droite et tout droit jusqu’au matin”.
Archive of the group exhibition “Deuxième étoile à droite et tout droit jusqu’au matin” at La Cafet’ – student gallery – des Beaux-Arts de Nantes Saint-Nazaire on February 04 – 05, 2020 in Nantes, France
Installation – 2020
Mattress, gelatin cushions, latex canvas, extension cord and sheet, concrete iron structure, Polaroïd photographs, television, electric cables, light bulbs, canisters, plaster cardboard boxes, bottle and cups
On screen: video, THE YAWL
Variable dimensions
This installation take place in intimate space that recalls the confined interior of a bedroom. It is a windowless space, plunged into the half-light of an occasional light, simply decorated with a makeshift bed and a television that broadcasts the same images in a loop. I wanted to give the space a form that approaches that of a living painting and that tells a partial story, half inhabited, half abandoned, left in suspense.
The title of the installation links the space of the room to the childhood memories that come to life on the screen. The sound of the scrolling video fills the space with a barely perceptible audio presence, the deaf rhythmic pattern loops and buzzes like a lullaby humming to the sound of a sea of oil.
THE YAWL
Vidéo – 2019
CRT video capture
Duration : 5’30”
Made from images collected in 2017 in Martinique, this video presents the remnants of a wandering journey into a childhood memory. I went to meet familiar landscapes – reminiscences of my childhood – to rediscover spaces and temporalities that seemed frozen by a time already passed but not yet gone.
The story told by Denis Galva is a description of a yawl, a light boat renowned for its annual tour of Martinique. This story can be read as a free interpretation of the famous poem by Charles Baudelaire. It functions as a symbol of the sea, a symbol of an invitation to travel, both poetically and mentally.
