Since obtaining her DNSEP from the École supérieure d’arts de Brest in 2000, visual artist Elizabeth Saint-Jalmes has developed a protean practice drawing on the fields of art philosophy and popular culture.
Since 2009, she has invited dancers to activate her plastic materials and performative devices in theaters, art centers, galleries and on the street. She has worked in particular with choreographer Mathilde Monfreux for relationships to movement and writing and with Cyril Leclerc who approaches light as a malleable plastic material.
She co-signs performances, videos and installations with musicians Jean-Luc Guionnet, Eric Cordier, Pigeon Pourri, Laurent Pascal and Unglee Izi, Sébastien Roux, Blandine Pinon.
With choreographer Mathilde Monfreux, between 2008 and 2018, she developed a body/plastic matter relationship work in multiple forms and modes of writing (Mitsi performances, dance pieces Projet cochon, Tube, and Next). Together, they offer research workshops on the body/sculpture relationship (Pontempeyrat, Chateauvallon, La compagnie, lieu de création, École supérieure d’art d’Aix en Provence, Le 3 bis F, Le Citron Jaune).
Since 2001, she has been involved in artistic action with audiences with whom she works on “shared creation” in collaboration with numerous structures (La Source, Pulsart, social landlords, sauvegarde, ADSEA, APES, Feu vert, Est Ensemble, maisons de l’emploi, médiathèques ect…).
With Hélène Crouzillat in shared creation workshops, she questions the conditions of the subject’s existence in society particularly with their projects “Corps de Métiers” and “En travail”.
Since 2010, her solo performance work has been shown in numerous structures (galleries and art centers, various festivals, art schools). She is also developing workshops on performative protocols in art schools.
In 2016, with Pascal Pellan, she directed the international collaborative project: “Babel es-tu là? which offers cultural players from 5 countries a framework for shared creation.
Her “exhibition environments” work has been shown in galleries and art centers for ten years. In 2013, represented by Gabriel & Gabriel gallery, she won the jury prize at the Dessin drawing fair in Paris. She is then represented by Santo Amor gallery in Paris and participates in numerous drawing fairs curated by Laurent Quénéhen.
In 2017, she represents France with the French Institute in a series of 6 exhibitions in Russia.
In 2018, she created with Cyril Leclerc the plastic duo PP+BL with whom they have since toured performance concerts and plastic installations in the digital arts network in France and abroad: Pixel lent and MUSHROOM RIOT at Centquatre Paris, Le Cube, Le Générateur, Sonica London, Umeö Sweden, Biennale Némo.
In 2020-2021 she is an associate artist at Le Générateur, an art and performance venue in Gentilly.
Conceived during a residency at Le Générateur, Abri Trou has been exhibited at various events including Instants Chavirés (Festival Sonic Protest), Centre Wallonie Bruxelles (Biennale NOVA_XX) and Carreau du Temple (Les Traversées du Marais).
At the heart of my practice are movement and metamorphosis.
The space of the “unfixed” that I convene in my practice shapes the productions and protocols I propose.
Because of my interest in transfers and porosity at work, my work operates in its relational dimension. Relationship is at the heart of my research and the way I share it: I create performative protocols to produce my works and devices to share them with the public.
The objects I produce are assimilable by the public, so the plastic dimension rubs shoulders with the performative and relational dimensions.
The devices I propose always have a role to play in mediating the plastic work, because what I invite visitors to my exhibitions to do is part of the same movement as what I implement myself: observing one’s own gestures, the gestures of others and their echoes.
The choice of medium adjusts to the situation and project imagined, and, it’s always without a net, focused, that I launch into new technical explorations.
Experimentation with these poetic, often humorous objects relies on the performativity of the human mind to question and invent itself.
Elizabeth Saint-Jalmes (June 2021)
more info: https://www.elizabethsaintjalmes.com/