NordArt

By Jesse Patrick Martin, Art Critic, Writer, Artist – April 2012

Soulier’s photo series, Palindromes and The Matryoshka Dolls, are part of Soulier’s multimedia practice— including photography, video, animation and model-making techniques.

The Palindromes series consists of sets of diptychs, each pairing a symmetrical landscape with a portrait of identical twins. Though the landscapes are of everyday transitional spaces such as parking lots and subway stations, Soulier captures select scenes at precise junctures to reveal the modern and quotidian at its most uncanny. The twins are situated in studio recreations based on their accompanying scenes, further compounding the doubling motif and deepening the sense of hyperreality elicited by the diptychs. Even the works’ palindromic titles engage Soulier’s mirroring system, as titles like Never odd or even and Level 11 pitch her visual feedback loops into semantic overdrive.

The Matryoshka Dolls, a chapter from her Fractal Architectures series, includes photos of toy- and life-scale interiors constructed by Soulier. Every element of the constructions was inspired by the form of the nesting Matryoshka dolls: from clock to pram to doorway arch, everything seems to curve, curl, and spin with the undulations born from this archetype. By using fractal logic as a generative tool, Soulier built a “dollhouse” that, shown on a grander scale, re-envisions a plaything’s cozy hermitage as a hypnotic and purgatorial cell.

http://www.kunstwerk-carlshuette.de/en/files/Soulier_165.pdf

Extract from Nordart 2012 Exhibition’s catalogue
Kunstwerk Carlshütte, Vorwerksallee
24782 Büdelsdorf – Germany

kunstwerk

Since 1999, the NordArt has established itself as one of the largest exhibitions of contemporary art in Europe, which takes place annually during the summer. The works of approximately 250 artists from around the world are selected and exhibited.

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