Artists

Prune Nourry

Press release

Following on from solo exhibitions in Brussels in 2017 and 2022 and Paris in 2019 and 2021, TEMPLON Paris is thrilled to invite Prune Nourry in his large space.

This exhibition was partly produced thanks to a partnership with the Atelier de moulage du Grand PalaisRmn in Saint-Denis.

The artist is unveiling Vénus, a project that continues the tradition of her previous work exploring women’s role in society using the symbolism of clay: Terracotta Daughters (2011-2031), Mater Earth (2020-2023) and Statues Also Breathe (2022).

The Vénus project is the fruit of Prune Nourry’s encounter with Ghada Hatem, a gynaecologist and obstetrician who founded the Maison des Femmes in Saint-Denis, a support centre for women who are victims of violence. The centre is part of a hospital and offers women in Seine-Saint-Denis who are struggling multi-disciplinary support and care. The artist met eight women at the centre’s workshops (that cover areas such as literacy, theatre and dance) who agreed to pose naked for her, courageously overcoming social taboos related to their culture or personal taboos rooted in their traumas. Echoing her approach with Projet Phenix in 2021, Prune Nourry chose to revive the tradition of portraiture as she sculpted in an even more intimate setting, between a woman sculptor and a woman model. The artist drew on each woman’s unique story – the women who wished to do so told her about their lives during the sittings – and diverse body shapes to model clay busts of them in the style of prehistoric Venus statues. Their words inspired each work just as much as the details of their bodies. The portraits, human-sized or small-scale, were then moulded before being cast in bronze covered in a layer of clay, or cast in terracotta.