Peintures série n°66 / série n°166 Emmanuelle Villard

No. 66.10, acrylic on canvas, 40x40 cm
No. 66.11, acrylic on canvas, 50x50 cm
No. 66.12, acrylic on canvas, 80x80 cm
No. 66.16, acrylic on canvas, 40x40 cm
No. 66.17, acrylic on canvas, 40x40 cm
No. 66.23, acrylic on canvas, 80x80 cm
No. 66.24, acrylic on canvas, 60x60 cm
No. 66.26, acrylic on canvas, 60x60 cm
No. 66.29, acrylic on canvas, 40x40 cm
No. 66.41, acrylic on canvas, 80x80 cm
No. 66.42, acrylic on canvas, 100x100 cm
No. 66.44, acrylic on canvas, 40x40 cm
No. 65.45, acrylic on canvas, 60x60 cm
No. 106.104, acrylic on canvas, 12x16 cm
No. 106.105, acrylic on canvas, 12x16 cm
No. 106.108, acrylic on canvas, 14x18 cm
No. 106.111, acrylic on canvas, 14x18 cm
No. 106.11, acrylic on canvas, 14x18 cm
No. 106.113, acrylic on canvas, 14x18 cm
No. 106.118, acrylic on canvas, 16x22 cm

“Starting with an initial technique that involves mixing acrylic paint and resin, the artist employs various methods of applying paint to the canvas: meticulously aligning droplets of paint using a pipette, spreading sinuous ‘ribbons’ of color, screening the canvas with ‘nets’ of paint, and layering and blending colors into ‘patches’ ”…

The gestures involved in spreading or dripping the paint are rigorously planned by the artist in his studio. Sometimes, the paint is subjected to specific constraints, such as enclosing the freshly painted canvas in plastic wrap, which is then pierced in places with a needle, allowing air bubbles and paint blisters to emerge. Yet the painting process is never entirely controlled. One must also allow the paint to act according to its drying properties, fluidity, coagulation, and slippage. The work develops over time, depending on the material’s capacity to be absorbed, confined, or repelled by another material, as well as on the tools and gestures determined in the studio. It is in this interplay between actively shaping the paint and allowing it to react on its own that the work acquires an open form and meaning.”

Larys Frogier, excerpt from the press release for Emmanuelle Villard exhibition, La Criée Center for Contemporary Art, January 17–March 1, 2002

“In Emmanuelle Villard’s painting, the focus is no longer necessarily on depicting a female or feminist body, but rather on playing, across the entire surface of the canvas, with effects of layers and textures that resonate with the flesh. The unapologetic femininity in her work thus constitutes a strategy for infiltrating painting and its history, as well as an effective and subversive strategy for seducing the eye. It is not simply a matter of creating something pretty and sensational, but of repeating and exploring to the fullest the attributes of a so-called feminine gender. To such an extent that this repetition ultimately defuses a double myth: that of femininity as a mere outer shell and that of painting as solely a flat surface; both myths serving to produce a fetish intended solely for visual pleasure. The feminine at work in Emmanuelle Villard’s art stems from a layering of the paint, from folding the canvas into thick strata, subtle meshes, artificial films, and glitters of varnished colors. This layering thus allows for interstices and shifts in both material and meaning. The feminine evolution of painting is definitively this act of diverting and transforming the gaze. (…)”

Larys Frogier, excerpt from the exhibition catalog Emmanuelle Villard, Rennes : La Criée Center for Contemporary Art, 2001