Colour is the first thing to hit you, from all directions, when stepping into Chloé Bocquet’s debut show with Eames Fine Art. It is almost dizzying in its array, in its variety and its harmonies. Chloé has spent the last two years working on her Vis-à-Vis series, mixing ink to produce ever subtler nuances of blue, green, pink, purple, red, orange. Each is unique, and the process has deepened her relationship with colour, sharpening her sense of it. In turn, having the opportunity to behold the result of all this work at once, our own sense of colour is sharpened. But there are shapes, too, simple forms that seem almost abstract and yet are immediately obvious when viewed in series. It is not only the colours that are unique; every composition is taken from the gable of a different building.
What at first may appear to be an exhaustive line-up of the different forms that gables can produce is, in reality, only a fraction of what any city-dweller will walk past in an average week. However, Chloé has not only passed by each and every one, but has also observed them, actively, has transplanted these blank, negative, ignored architectural spaces into the studio, and used them as a basis for her immense exploration of colour. The city, with its interminable streets, can be a place in which it is hard to feel at home. Through her acts of looking, Chloé’s work quietly celebrates the individuality of the city’s many facades, while at the same time, by using these found compositions, and simplifying them, gives a privilege to colour almost as if each piece were a portrait of its own particular hue.
