Artist Statement

Exhibition. Abbaye de Maubuisson, Saint-Ouen-l’Aumône, Apr 2 – Sep 3

Félicie d’Estienne d’Orves is a ISEA2023 Selected artist

On the occasion of her new exhibition at the Maubuisson Abbey, Félicie d’Estienne d’Orves narrates in her own way the intersecting destinies of man and the cosmos. Most notably inspired by ancient Egyptian stories on immortality and the nocturnal journey of the solar god Ra on his boat, she invites the spectators on a poetic and metaphysical trip to the land of shadows and reborn light.

Through mirrors and sculptures in which light plays a predominant role, the artist questions the deep fields of space and time. She questions humanity’s relation to the beyond through the cycle of matter within the universe, the birth and death of stars. Félicie d’Estienne d’Orves provides enough to make us dream as well as meditate : of which distant dreams are we the memory ?
Text by Olivier Schefer, writer and philosopher

Between art, astrophysics and mythology, Félicie d’Estienne d’Orves did not want to make a choice. From his many loves was born the exhibition Khépri, going out to the day, which we discover after a trip by RER C to the Abbey of Maubuisson. The art center of 95, through its spiritual past, is charged with a particular energy which gives the cosmic works of the visual artist another dimension.
An invitation to silence, the exhibition alternates spectacular installations, luminous sculptures and colorful paintings to explore the relationship between Man and the cosmos. While the first space invites us to follow the course of the Sun from Mars, a gigantic reproduction of an ultra-photogenic eclipse announces the penumbra and reveals the masterpieces of this exhibition: three Nekromanteion which make the room of the Nuns shine. These large luminous mirrors are transformed into openings on the world which reflect each other indefinitely, revealing dark nebulae. What the scientific world has long taken for black holes actually hides the birth of stars, and it is tirelessly that we watch them come into the world and then die out, to the rhythm of a sound installation by Marc Billon.
Nothing escapes in the end, and we poor mortals are made of the same stuff as the stars. A link highlighted in the last spaces of the exhibition which also question renewal. When a star explodes, a whole universe is created. What happens when it’s our turn to shut down?
_Zoé Kennedylundi in Time Out Paris (17.07.2023)

• Félicie d’Estienne d’Orves born in Athens, Greece in 1979, lives and works in Paris, France. The work of Félicie d’Estienne d’Orves combines light, sculpture and new technologies. Her research focuses on vision, its processes and conditioning. Her immersive installations use a phenomenological approach to reality, they underscore the perception of time as a continuum. Since 2014, the artist’ researches focused on space in relation to astrophysics and to study the natural light cycles. Her work has been shown at the Centre Pompidou – Nuit Blanche (Paris) – New Art Space / Sonic Acts (Amsterdam) – Watermans Arts Center (London) – Elektra Festival / BIAN (Montreal) – Maison des Arts of Créteil (Créteil/FR) – Le Centquatre / Nemo International Biennial of Digital Arts (Paris) – OCAT (Shanghai) – ICAS (Dresden) – Aram Art Museum (Goyang /KR). http://www.feliciedestiennedorves.com