HELOÏSE RIVAL: GARDE FOU (fou de grâce)

OPENING THURSDAY, JANUARY 30TH AT 6 PM

Prima is delighted to present Garde Fou (mad with grace), a solo exhibition by Héloïse Rival. The title, leaving little doubt about the creative intent, feels like a call, an urgent need to create. With this new body of work, Rival unveils an intimate oeuvre whose universal resonance quickly becomes apparent.

For Prima, the artist has chosen to alternate between several types of works, pushing her practice even further—"determined," as she puts it. An eight-meter-long frieze, a large-scale wall installation, and paintings form a compelling and disorienting narrative. These works are what one might call "plastic hybrids" (painting-ceramics), imbued with a richly fertile imagination where figures, chimeras, symbols, and ornaments intertwine. Working directly on raw clay, the artist scratches, then paints it with glazes. Fire takes over, bringing its unpredictable touch.

“Ceramics is something Héloïse has never approached from a practical perspective. Her early pieces are frames that, in themselves, form the work. Perhaps iconoclastic—or, conversely, early prototypes of an imaginary world steeped in spiritual symbols and icons.

At the end of her studies in screen printing and printmaking at La Cambre (Brussels), life sped up. A loss gave birth to creation. Nature abhors a vacuum. Pregnant, she nurtured and fought to gradually carve out a space amidst the thorns. Juggling school, odd jobs, and worksites, perhaps this is how wolves tend their young.

She made her first pieces in stairwells. ‘There was no room anywhere; I was still nursing, there was milk on the floor, clay, and the baby nearby.’ This brings us back to motherhood—its raw, sublime materiality. The birth of her daughter mirrored a creative urgency: as a woman, as an artist, as a declaration. Her practice became her safeguard (garde-fou).

Perhaps this is the story Héloïse wants to tell us. Mother, no longer quite a daughter. A story of loss, rupture, anxiety, and choices. Where a final grief led her to this mystical refuge. An obsessive catharsis. A story of being a safeguard (garde-fou).” – Clara Lalix

The gallery will also present Héloïse Rival’s work next spring in the Promesses sector of Art Paris at the Grand Palais.