SELMA PARLOUR

Selma Parlour opens painting up to other hypotheses, to that of a haptic serenity where light, finding refuge in the material, unfolds an interweaving of subtle associations that draw the eye into a meditative plunge. Committed to questioning the foundations of her medium, the British artist has developed a singular pictorial vocabulary in which the language of geometric abstraction blossoms in works with a diagrammatic aesthetic.

Obtained by the meticulous addition of thin oil washes on linen canvases, her painted works, at once delicate and translucent, take on the appearance of drawn or printed surfaces that tend towards the subliminal. Caught up in a contradictory movement of sedimentation and expansion, paint becomes a source of light, stratifying and liberating itself to reveal all its depth and radiance.

Selma Parlour’s works thus combine the restrained formal qualities of minimalist art with a sensibility expressed through the persistence of color: questions linked to notions of surface and flatness, as well as transparency, illusion and repetition, lie at the heart of the artist’s plastic reflection. Using geometry and isolated two-dimensional forms, she creates abstract spaces in which spatial confusion is allowed to flourish. The eye finds itself drawn to the surface of the canvas, which becomes a space to be conquered.

Following in the footsteps of James Turrel and Turi Simeti, both of whom have been exhibited at the Almine Rech gallery since its inception, Selma Parlour continues the rich tradition of artists who probe the limits of perception.

Press release courtesy Almine Rech. Text: Maud de la Forterie, art historian and researcher.