The Feelings Itinerary / Map of the Senses
The project is a series of self-portrait drawings, often represented by archaic or pagan masks. We discover therein a personal and intimate mythology in which the artist questions her identity through metamorphosis and self-projection, completely replaced by the savage. The fantasised volcanic landscapes and the self-portraits become the landmarks of life and places from a distant memory. These faces, sometimes disturbing, wild, even grotesque, come together with the desire to meet the soul and to question the ever-shifting, elusive identity. The dream-distorted reality makes us question our understanding of reality itself.
The artist's work is a succession of intermittent encounters between the world as she perceives it and the wild. Jennifer Delplanque's graphic universe also extends over volcanic landscapes with colourful, flowing lavas and other organic, mineral forms not without evoking the themes of fertility and sexuality. We discover shell-caverns with entering silhouettes - a metaphor of listening to oneself, of retrospect and inner world. We bump into rocks and flint that take us back to the prehistoric. Little by little the self-portrait disappears, giving way to entertaining an indulgent casual narrative between the artist and reality. There, the metamorphoses move with great freedom.
"to paint the imaginary is to go through the meanders of the human soul" (Henri Rousseau)
"the human is the living being whose existence is accompanied by an aptitude to make oneself bigger, to manifest oneself in multiple roles" (Jean Starobinski)
After finishing her studies at École Des Beaux-Arts in Rennes, France, Jennifer Delplanque went with the Erasmus programme to Cluj-Napoca, Romania where she stayed on for 5 years. Her artwork has become highly influenced by her experience of living in Romania, where she eventually formed family ties and gained a focus to a new world of inspiration. She is now living and working in Brussels.
Mes dessins se tissent instinctivement. Une vague pensée, un désir de dessiner puis une évidence : un sentiment, un contexte, un souvenir apparaît et devient le fil conducteur d’une d’idée que je conduis et noircis sur le papier.
Ainsi, j’invente ma mythologie personnelle, narre, transpose mon quotidien ou évoque des souvenirs et des sensations vécues tout en laissant place à l’imaginaire. Je réinterprète cette mémoire parfois confuse et défaillante pour créer de nouvelles images, de nouveaux «moi». Je parle de ce que je n’ai plus, de ce que j’ai quitté, de ce que je deviens ou souhaite devenir et me révèle avec surprise et pudeur en dessinant.
On ne parle jamais aussi bien d’un lieu que lorsque l’on a quitté celui-ci.
Mon travail questionne l’identité trouble, en mouvance permanente, décortiquée et reconstruite, influencée par des vies antérieures ici et là, jamais figée, jamais définie, voir floue, parfois même fragilisée. Mes racines se sont étendues; je me démultiplie et m’imprègne de toutes ces nouvelles influences que mes pieds ont foulé.
