Château La Coste, Le-Puy-Sainte-Réparade

Natsukashii

Influenced by her many trips to Japan, and especially by the teachings of Mono No Aware, Marcella Barceló’s work conveys an evanescent world through the representation of fleeting moments. This impermanence as a connection to the world is derived from the Shintô philosophy, to which the artist feels very connected. According to Shintoism, unlike in Western cultures, man is not at the center of the world and nature, but part of a harmonic whole, with no desire to classify or dominate.

The investigation into a non-anthropocentric world order can be seen through the positioning of the human figures drawn by the artist. They don’t seem to have any sort of control over their environment, but rather dissolve into it, melting into the flow of the elements.

For Art-O-Rama, Marcella Barceló has collaborated with Château La Coste to produce two different kinds of edition, as both pigment and lithographic prints.

The three pigment printed editions, produced by the Marseille-based printing studio Tchikebe, were conceived from a series of drawings made during her last trip to Japan. Each title refers to the Yôkai, creatures from Japanese folklore: Kodama is the tree spirit, Betobetosan, a spectre easily recognisable by the sound of its footsteps and Zashiki Warashi, the domestic and beneficial spirit.

The two lithographs have been produced by Michael Woolworth’s atelier in Paris, which specialises in lithographic techniques achieved through a purely manual printing process. Each proof has been retouched by the artist in watercolour, nail polish and the same iridescent and shimmering pigments found in her paintings, making them unique works.

These editions will be presented alongside an ensemble of original drawings on washi orizome paper, a traditional Japanese technique similar to tie-dye, which Barceló learnt in Kyoto.