Here, at Prime Matter, once stood a Roman temple for the Phrygian mother goddess Cybele. Today, we are invited to reflect on Earth and Life in this sacred ancient place.
Where the mother goddess Cybele embodies fertility and protection for nature and animals, as well as for cities and their inhabitants, radiating maternal security and vitality, she also symbolizes powerful, threatening, and unrestrained ecstasy. This stems from the wild rituals associated with her cult. This duality portrays her as both earthly and sublime, wise and mad, reliable and uncontrollable, peaceful and violent. Much like life itself.
‘Terra Mater: From Magma to Metamorphosis’ displays inspiring works by three artists, exploring the essence and contrasts of life.
Cecile Mestelan’s monumental clay potatoes show the strength of the humble tuber as it pushes through mud towards light and air. Similarly, the figures in Jean-Baptiste Des Gachons’ paintings emerge from inner turmoil towards the light, towards hope. Potatoes and people arise from chaos dusty, rough, battered, lost, and worn, yet can be reborn. Confronting our demons can lead to beauty, inspiration, and hope. This is demonstrated in Emmanuel Babled’s cabinets and gueridons, for which he used lava from Mount Etna, transforming the gray stone resulting from a volcanic eruption when the earth spews its entrails through its crust, into an infinite and magnificent palette of colors obtained through enameling. At a scorching 900 degrees, speckled spots apear based on the reactions of oxides in the emulsion, an uncontrollable process where Mother Nature determines the whimsical forms. Here too, grappling with challenges, experimenting, and hoping for the best, as well as openness to the unexpected, play a significant role, resulting in irregular spots in the glaze, like a universe of speckled galaxies.
When finding the way to the light, to the surface of our own crust, we often create meaningful beauty to share with others, and we ultimately experience existential satisfaction. A process we can’t control and thus is best approached with an open mind for the unexpected.
Prime Matter creates a space that feels both comforting and turbulent, inviting us to dig into our own experiences, even when they’re messy and confusing. It’s a journey towards inner peace, a state of eudaimonia. This path often leads through crisis, pain and confusion- no eudaimonia without dysphoria!
This exhibition reflects on life’s complexity, expressed through surprising clay objects, enameled lava stone furniture, and colorful paintings. It emphasizes the juxtaposition between human vulnerability and the earth’s power, as well as between human resilience and the endangered state of the earth.
Through a fusion of art, design, and an introspective narrative, Prime Matter invites the viewer on an exploration of the essence of the self, through the eyes and hands of Cecile Mestelan, Jean-Baptiste Des Gachons, and Emmanuel Babled. Works of three artists who delve into the earth and into themselves, shared in this exhibition that takes us on a winding journey from magma to metamorphosis.
Curated by Stefano Riva and Marta Fróis.
Curatorial text by Veerle Devos.
