Collective exhibition at CAC Brétigny, Centre d’art de Brétigny
Curated by Marion Vasseur Raluy
Set design by Guendalina Cerruti
My approach to painting is a dialogue between Kurdish animist folk beliefs and rituals, as well as theoretical connections to art history. Here, I fuse the Impressionist movement with the Kurdish ritual of coffee-cup reading. In this ritual, predicting the future—whether a windfall or a tragedy—is neither the subject nor the goal; the point is to tell stories. We interpret abstract traces and bring images to life through the imagination. The first step is to press a cup dipped in coffee grounds into the surface. The cup reveals a circle, which I multiply. The layering of this motif evokes mental landscapes. These circles become bubbles (of thought) or balls behind which symbols with divinatory connotations are hidden. The act of hiding, as a political act, runs through my painting. I use interplay between transparency and opacity to make figures appear and disappear. It is also a way of playing with illusion, the impression of a landscape, and the question of the gaze. Animals, the moon, mountains, plants, silhouettes. If a storyteller were to stop time to gather women in a circle where secrets, stories, and traumas take shape in the coffee, then I paint with this cup.
pigments acrylique et marre de café, fusain, 250x100cm, 2026
More informations: https://www.cacbretigny.com/fr/exhibitions/1082-show-d-houdini