In 1978, Philip Kaufman directed «The Invasion of the Body Snatchers», a remake of Don Siegel’s 1956 cult film of the same title. The two films, with several variations, tell the tale of a hero confronted by extraterrestrials who fabricate the perfect double of humans in order to replace them by clones deprived of emotional sentiment. We see aliens that emerge from what seem to be pods, at once organic and vegetal, and whom stealing the bodies of their hosts. We can compare these « thieves of bodies », these invasive envelopes with gourd-like forms, to the strange oblong protuberances of Delphine Pouillé’s sculptures, which, like the extraterrestrials of the film, evoke an alternative tribe and an artificial gestation. In all of her work, inspired by unusual experimentations, we find sculptures that the artist can use either as prosthetics for performance pieces or as autonomous aerial structures suspended by cables. The artist obtains these forms by drawing patterns on pieces of paper which she then transfers onto fabric that she cuts out in order to sew them together. The result of this process is strange envelopes, a sort of epidermis awaiting matter. A powerful reticular and biomorphic cocoon that one must inflate with intense energy and with the help of aerosol spray. This long operation used by an improbable surgeon and do-it-yourselfer, allows the artist to create a series of work that make one think of the organic forms developed by artists such as Michel Blazy, Elsa Sahal or even Lynda Benglis.
For a long time, Delphine Pouillé had the desire to control the process of creation of these sculptures. However, with more experience, she has realized that it is more interesting to accept and even provoke numerous accidents. Today, she welcomes with enthusiasm the formal ambiguities engendered by the flow, the excess, the gushing and the violence of a foam that is at times uncontrollable and which stimulates the energy of her sculptures, making them less domesticated, more brutal, more invasive; even accepting of the violence and of the aggression of time and of the necessity of a work that involves an intense dialogue. In the landscape of Sancy and the atmosphere of summer, the artist exhibits a new series of works created by the same process which she has explored in multiple iterations. The sculptural ensemble, composed of diverse materials such as wood and cement, savagely colonize the trees and the earth of this exceptional panorama.
Alain Berland, text written on the occasion of the outdoor exhibition Peuplade, Horizons #9, Chastreix, Massif du Sancy, France, 2015
English translation by Tali Gai
