I Land

Opening on the 9th of December 09 at Diatopos Gallery, I LAND, the third solo exhibition of Melita Couta, is presenting the cartography of an improbable land. Several media are used. Among them, the artist is presenting a series of drawings, ink on paper, in which tenuous and innumerable lines intermingle skilfully, spread their plait in various shades, and bring to our mind the memory of non-existing places. Atopos with transitory geographical references, fluid and ever changing, is drawn on detailed maps that address our emotional as well as our analytical praxes of space. Volatile yet anchored, evanescent yet inscribed.

This paradoxical nature of the topos also appears in the sculptures the exhibition includes. Life-size humanlike figures, mythological inhabitants of the hypothetical lands are dissected by surfaces, penetrated by voids or trapped by furniture-like structures. What happens when a faun is cut at the waist by an IKEA desk? How does the movement of an oversized pendulum, endlessly repeated, complete six glass eyes that are peering on us? What is hidden under that long dress, worn by a headless woman, bristled with a grey scale of ribbons? This installation states, somehow playfully and seriously, that like the territories we live in, we are hybrid by nature. And so are all our mapping processes.

This is where drawings and sculptures meet to show how, between space, body and territory, the frontiers are not impervious. I carry with me the spaces (rooms, buildings, cities, countries) I have been living in for years or passing through in haste. Imaginary spaces of childhood, youth and maturity are no less present in each of my gestures. In return, these spaces are shaping and reshaping my body, modelling its form and content. Hence, they are no mere spaces. They are uncertain territories that demand for a recognition, sometimes for care. Notations of hypothetical lands, places, constellations, explosions, charts of possible movements and thoughts. Volatile yet anchored. Evanescent yet inscribed. I land.

Text by Pascal Caron

Parallel Event
On December the 18th Pascal Caron will be presenting a movement / dance performance in the gallery space at 20:00. The show will be in symbiosis with the works of Melita Couta and will develop through stimulations created by the structural design of I LAND.

Opening times
Tuesday - Friday: 11:00am - 1:00pm and 5:00pm - 8:00pm
Saturday: 11:00am - 1:00pm.

The gallery will remain closed between the 23rd of December 09 to the 4th of January 10.