"I conceived this exhibition as an Italian villa, complete with a well-guarded entrance and gardens punctuated by animal sculptures. Small nightingales and swallows (recalling the story of Philomela and Procne from the Metamorphoses) invite the viewer to lose themselves in this labyrinth of sculptures inspired by antiquity."
Inspired by the writings of ancient authors—such as Seneca’s Letters to Lucilius or Ovid’s Metamorphoses (from which the title is drawn, specifically the poem about Hyacinth)—the pieces themselves undergo a metamorphosis: starting as kraters, they transform into geese, winged heifers, or even a horse with seashell-shaped handles. I conceived this exhibition as an Italian villa, complete with a well-guarded entrance and gardens punctuated by animal sculptures. Small nightingales and swallows (recalling the story of Philomela and Procne from the Metamorphoses) invite the viewer to lose themselves in this labyrinth of sculptures inspired by antiquity.
Drawing is the starting point for Perrine Boudy’s practice: starting on paper, her line escapes to ceramics and then covers walls. Her research revolves around line, gesture and, of course, the source of images. Strongly influenced by the Greco- Roman period, her inspirations go far beyond this: she is perpetually on the lookout for “the” detail, a detail from a past work, or from a more recent cartoon, which she can then integrate into her work, having “digested” it through the prism of drawing. She always strives to find a point of tension, the same point that makes up the balance between the decorative arts and the fine arts; the aim is to play with this boundary so as to be able to create her own mythology in a space that I would like to be total.
