Annabelle Guetatra exhibition_The night is still up that’s why I can’t sleep

The sober and meticulous line of the silhouettes cut out from the pattern paper contrasts with the rendering of the backgrounds, often more impulsive and impetuous. Between control and letting go, the whole generates a tension evolving between restraint and exultation.

During her latest research, the artist explores the “quest for self” and points out the risk of confinement linked to this withdrawal. The increased postures evoke the plurality of a being. This refrain, bordering on trance, refers to this introspection sometimes leading to perdition. Like her main character, the artist repeats gestures that are sometimes obsessive to achieve her ends. The quest for oneself is transformed without transition into a search beyond oneself: a sublime interior takes us beyond the limits of the small ego to take us towards the immense and indecipherable unknown. Thus, the word ecstasy, from the Greek ekstasis, means exactly that: "to stand outside of oneself or to transcend oneself", as in mystical practice, through a visionary experience and a union with the divine. Ecstasy is not a decoupling of body and soul, but rather a decoupling of soul and self. It is a place of sympathy, of approaching (the) other.

For Annabelle and her artistic practice, this quest is ultimately about introducing ritual and belief into her life; it is about honoring and upholding life as sacred – singing its infinite song and dancing its infinite dance.