JOËL ANDRIANOMEARISOA

Joël Andrianomearisoa does not impose certainty, he offers a sensitive exploration of this border which freezes all duality. He likes to weave in this gap, from a multitude of possibilities. By composing serenely in this in-between, he comes here to challenge the definition of a desire that ends up preempting pleasure. In a fruitful exercise of desire, never associated with its culpable counterpart, Joël summons the shared rhythmic allowed by dance: a space of expression and bodily freedom created with the Other.

Through the figure of the angel, both benevolent and invisible, he invokes this Other and brings him face to face in a game of reminiscences in several forms. It invites physical memory and pays homage, to learned shivers, to plundered ecstasies, to the part of the other that one carries within oneself. He suggests that we follow the intimate path choreographed with those who continue to live in each of us.

At the entrance of the gallery, like a commemorative banner, The Angels chants a succession of first names whose various sounds prevent any geographic circumscription. He says nothing about the relationship he has with those who carry them, those who have permeated him and whom he ends up inviting to settle in him. Far from the alienating meaning associated with desire, the artist cherishes and nurtures these moments, these relationships, these inspirations. He makes these ‘openings to the world’ indelible and celebrates them with poetic and aesthetic power.

Joël creates a walk from a multitude of artificial flowers gleaned online and around the world, whether or not they are a faithful reflection of species existing in Nature. Replicas of tulips, tropical flowers or agapanthus intertwine, tame and coexist in a totemic symbiosis. Further refining the already fragile border of dualistic representations, Joël does not decide between celebration and commemoration. The installation combines them without creating an amalgam. The artist-florist gives each of them the freedom to display themselves in their diversity by inviting them to inhabit space, together.

Conceived as a series of irregular landscapes, the series of drawings lets glimpse here and there, through its repetitive linearities, presences and absences, and reminds us that both are never absolute. Combining the precision of graphite with the indelibility of pastel, the drawings reveal traces of memory lying on the reassuring softness of the textile fiber.

Through an intuitive but never improvised arrangement, Joël Andrianomearisoa takes us into a sensitive questioning about what we are, through the irrefutable affirmation of desire. Without ever freezing in a geography, he whispers an answer to us in several voices.

Text by Meriem Berrada.