Maëlle Dufour. Construire la ruine

Maëlle Dufour creates complex systems. It seeks to question the progress at the heart of past eras, known but also those to come. The visual artist explores the traces of decadence as the beginnings of hope by questioning progress. She seeks to question the origin, memory and rebirth or sometimes absence. Are the ruins destroyed by the force of nature itself or by men in battles for territories? Can they be the foundations of a renewal? The viewer’s physical confrontation with Maëlle Dufour’s work can be unsettling because the size and weight of the pieces surpassing any human scale constantly remind us of the vulnerability of our own existence. Through her “sculpture‐systems”, she explores “an archaeology of waste”. These are valuable sources of information from past societies, physical legacies bequeathed to those yet to be born.

“I build in situ devices that destabilize the visitor, disrupt his senses and his environment, with the aim of questioning a reality that has always interested me: that of the destruction of humans by humans” (Maëlle Dufour) “Maëlle Dufour sculpts with the dizziness that each exhibition venue gives her. Its monuments of wood or earth, on the scale of excess, stun the viewer and lead him down adrift paths.” – Adèle Santocono, head of the plastic arts sector of the province of Hainaut, BE

Exhibitions: Au MAAC in December 2021, À la Maison CFC 19 of November to 31 December 2021.

Text in English and French.