Lionel Sabatté — Marrella splendens — Patricia Dorfmann Gallery — Exhibition — Slash Paris

Past: March 17 → April 14, 2012

The work of Lionel Sabatté examines a certain relation with history of life (see The Pack, a group of wolves in dust presented in the Grand Gallery of Evolution of the Botanical Gardens (Jardin des plantes, Paris), October 2011): he is interested in theories of evolution, prehistory and philosophical implications of discoveries in biology. Marrella splendens is the name of a creature that lived in the deep ocean, 500 million years ago.

In this exhibition, Lionel Sabatté suggested a series of paintings, works on paper and small sculptures, which he regards as a structured exploration of sensations and feelings, as a dialogue with matter. These dialogues are visual and physical, they play with the proper life of an acrylic spot, of rust, bird droppings, broken eggshells, dead skin or nail clippings. They are also mental and symbolic. Each has a suggestive evocative power related with respect to time, to ephemeral, to notions of impermanence, transformation and continuity. The free and spontaneous use of these materials and their physical and aesthetic properties guides Lionel Sabatté in its creation.

The compositions of Lionel Sabatté are all springboards for the imagination, but also small meaningful experiences of poetic and sometimes ironic dysregulations.