États d’âme

In the Salon space, the gallery shows a group of artworks by the artist Alison Flora, who paints with her own blood, collected intravenously, a ‘soul-blood’ that is closer to her spirit than the blood of the menstrual blood. Thus, she exorcises her fears, obsessions and states of mind through surrealistic images in which she reinvents symbols shared by the collective consciousness. Living and working in Toulouse, Alison Flora takes her inspiration from the vast territory of Occitanie, particularly its folklore, myths and legends, which forge its history and are transmitted from one generation to another. Questioning the simulacrum of violence, resistance and the act of magic, the blood painting can show what is meant by the maxim memento-mori, remember that you will die. Blood is intrinsically ambivalent. It has played and continues to play a fundamental role in all civilisations. Blood defiles and purifies, it is masculine and feminine, pompous or fateful, beneficial or dangerous, and spilling it can be a crime or a sacred act. Blood carries with it an instinctive emotional force. In this sense, paint with human blood, but above all her own blood, brings a sense of hyper proximity to the very act of painting.


Translated extract from the exhibition presentation, Le Salon DS Galerie, Paris, France