Unpredictably, the work of art has the power to suddenly remove us from the world around us. Hypnotized, we set off on a journey whose duration disappears to give way to depths, a journey within ourselves of which we control neither the levels, nor the bifurcations, nor the destination. Drawn towards this place that is both unknown and familiar, we are as if transported into a back world. Then the ages of the earth, primordial nature, the memories of archaic cities, our intertwined dreams, a buried emotion that we thought had disappeared forever come together. From tiny details emerge impressions as persistent as they are forgotten from our previous life. What was lost is once again very close, bathed in the light of the work that looks at us. The unconscious ignores linear and irreversible time, it does not care about our chronological benchmarks and blurs the eras. He can make the past our future, the future our memory, the present a moment of eternity. Art speaks to him better than we do. In its vibrations, a life drawn from the depths emerges. Coming from the darkness of time, a force pulses. Irrigated by the creative power of the artists presented here, the exhibition is an invitation to embark towards this back world, on an inner journey specific to each but open to the possibility of sharing with all. It is precisely this magic of the encounter with art and with others that Guillaume Sébastien has been inviting us for 20 years. Happy birthday to his gallery!

Raphaëlle Ziadé, Curator of the Byzantine collections at the Petit Palais