Volcan Mata Ouest (Océan Pacifique)

Born in Paris in 1989, she currently lives and works in Brussels. After receiving a master’s degree in drawing from the ENSAV La Cambre in 2014, she is nominated for the 2016 edition of the Prix Révélations Emerige and she is the winner 2018 of the Young Talents prize of Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles. Touching an aesthetic of the disappearance, Léa Belooussovitch’s works question our attitude towards violence, graphic violence in particular related to our society highlighting the vulnerability of a peculiar moment and witnessing the artist’s humanity. The drawing resumes the clear, brightly-colored image sourced from the press, capturing on the field people in distress without any detour. The manual transcription allows the visual information coming from the photographic medium to become more tolerable. The image appears as evanescent as a ghost, like the imprint of his source in our memories. Nevertheless its power is still there, in this intimate transcription of a tale of such brutality that makes the eye look away. Despite being physically close to the work, the viewer is yet kept far from the harsh reality: it is precisely this gap between the signified and and the signifier, that has been emphasized here.