Maëlle Labussière at Galerie Corinne Caminade, Paris

Maëlle Labussière's exhibition at Galerie Corinne Caminade in Paris from May 10 to June 19, 2001, presented paintings that foreground the act of painting itself. Her works consist of superimposed and juxtaposed broad colored bands left by brushstrokes, neither representing nor symbolizing anything beyond their own execution. Labussière avoids systematization, varying tools and techniques—flat areas, transparencies, impastos, overlays, drips—to ensure each canvas is singular. The bands are not motifs but the minimal inscription of a brush passing over the canvas. Critic Karim Ghaddab situates her practice within a lineage of artists since the 1960s who emphasize the mark of the tool, including Lichtenstein's Brushstrokes, Toroni's brush traces, Soulages' use of the brush, David Reed, and Marian Breedveld. However, Labussière's process never becomes a mere procedure; she constantly modifies her brushes, rollers, and tools, opposing geometric treatment with free gesture. The resulting paintings, while immediately recognizable, are deeply varied in composition, chromatic range, and pictorial technique. Ghaddab argues that this fixation of the passage—of brush, gaze, and time—into image reflects a contemporary historical consciousness, one that eschews myths, utopias, or dogmas about art's supposed powers. Labussière's painting limits itself to its own presence, and in that limitation, opens a field of all freedoms.