Between figuration and abstraction, Aurélie Gravas creates a world where forms emerge, dissolve and transform, inviting us to pause, look and complete the image for ourselves.
Les Mains du Miracle marks Aurélie Gravas’ first solo exhibition with Etesian Gallery. Based in Brussels, the French artist explores the shifting space between figuration and abstraction, where faces, figures, flowers, objects and landscapes appear, dissolve and take on unexpected forms.
Gravas creates paintings that balance softness and boldness just by working primarily with pigments. Layers, fragments, gestures and strong contours suggest movement while maintaining a sense of stillness, allowing familiar forms to hover between recognition and ambiguity. A face may become a flower, a landscape may dissolve into colour, and an apparently simple shape can reveal another identity.
The title, Les Mains du Miracle, refers both to Joseph Kessel’s book and to a recurring motif subtly present in the foreground of Gravas’ paintings. Across the exhibition, these gestures become part of a visual language that is playful yet enigmatic, inviting the viewer to pause, question and ultimately complete the image in their own way.
The works transform the gallery into an immersive field of soft, shifting colour, where figuration and abstraction remain in constant dialogue.
