About the seller

Galerie Claire Corcia

Paris, France

Artsper seller since 2013 33 orders finalized This seller rewards your purchases of multiple artworks

Jean-Claude Desmerges

Paris From November 9, 2025 to December 11, 2025

Presentation

“Once I arrived in Seyni’s lair, all trace of uncertainty vanished, and I found myself immersed in a primal hymn. I had the strange feeling of knowing her, of having heard her voice. There was fire in her eyes. I had left for a day, and after two weeks, I was still there, near her, observing her, drawing her and her works in progress. With her hands, she molds the clay as if she were swallowing handfuls of mud to bring them forth as arable earth, as small beings, half-animal, half-human, of another order, carving and splitting this yellow and purple clay with her thumb; beneath her fingers caressing the formless matter, her eye piercing and shining, she grasps the meaning of light, and I, I no longer know where or how, but I begin to draw on the ground.” I surrender myself to the charcoal and clay dust, rewriting to try and convey the "reality" of my experience, unaware of what I'm doing on these found cement bags that I've hastily torn open and stripped, which serve as my canvas. Everything happens very quickly. In a short burst of breath, I opt for a dynamic line, as if I've become a runaway horse whose ultimate goal is to merge with the incantatory signs molded by Seyni's hands, for me the only elemental means of reaching her inner world. As I draw what I see of Seyni or her sculptures all around, I begin to understand that it's no longer drawing, it's "imagination" that I'm tracing to create a mental journey, defying all rules to arrive at something physical, muscular, and spiritual—in a word, a fusion. The only way to reach her higher world, to seek further, through the sign, the connection with the world inhabited by the potter of Casamance, I trace a path of life convinced that I am writing an initiatory journey that will lead me for four years, always and each time, to the edge of the unknown. What I am presenting at the Claire Corcia Gallery are traces of new reminiscences, like correspondences or synesthesias between the senses and the perceptions experienced in her studio.

Jean-Claude Desmerges, September 2025

Address

Details

323 rue Saint Martin
75003, Paris
France
06 62 84 03 74

Artworks Artists

Jean-Claude Desmerges

France

Seyni Awa Camara

Senegal

Exhibitions in Paris