Texts / Photos
ON THE SERIES: FORTUITOUS SENSITIVE GEOMETRIES
It would be hard to find geometrical shapes more devoid of affect than those we remember from our school days. Only angles, straight lines, "cylinders, spheres, cones" (Cézanne). An impersonal space of cold rigor, the world of geometry gives itself out as the opposite of emotional experience. However, what if geometry, the very one that dwells in and makes up reality, was a source of affects? Such is Nicole Joye's choice who, through her photographs, endeavors to make us feel the emotional power that shapes the sensitive world: the geometry of the industrial, architectural or urban cosmos, but also the geometry of some natural shapes. Sometimes, these different environments escape their austere fate and become a source of esthetical vibrations.
The interest of the "Sensitive geometries" series lies in making us see the dreamy, playful and imaginative side of Nicole Joye's work, revealed by abstract horizontal, vertical and oblique lines. She has a talent for making us contemplate this alchemy of everyday life. Thus, photography succeeds in giving esthetical depth to these paradoxical "sensitive geometries".
Nicole Joye has no organized plan or predetermined horizon and she does not consider her work as the illustration of a conceptual or theoretical "idea". She is a tireless walker wandering in the streets, in the mountains and along sea shores, filled with the wonder of the world, its inexhaustible diversity, its enchanting colors which she captures as days and seasons go by.
This is the moment when the second phase of the artist's work on this collection of photographs becomes possible:
she brings together what, at first sight, has nothing in common, devising "pairs" of photos, each one of which was taken for its own sake, for its own idiosyncracy. Through this improbable encounter, the effect of the sensitive geometries ends up with increased potency. There is indeed magic in this encounter between distant universes vibrating in unison.
Nicole Joye does not impose anything to the eye of the viewer and does not want to demonstrate anything: she weds what was discovered fortuitously. When we watch Nicole Joye's photographs, chance becomes an emotional necessity.
And so it is, that a work that manifestly revives the practice of Beauty nevertheless belongs wholly to contemporary art. The "open work" asserts itself not through the deconstruction of craft, representation, perspective, beauty, or any other artistic landmarks, but rather in a combination of reflexivity and aesthetic contemplation that takes place in the viewer. The idea of beauty is not in abeyance; there is no intention to destroy its harmony as with modern art, but rather a reinvestment of its problematic, by way of a compulsary uncertainty, compelling the public to bring their own doubts, interrogations, resonances, reasons. A spirit of contemporary art drives the spectacle of these sensitive geometries.
Each viewer is engaged in a paradoxical and particular experience that merits attention. On the one hand, these photos have an undeniably "classical" aspect, given their aesthetic and representational dimension. Immersing the viewer in a kind of happy contemplation, they seem to have no connexion with a contemporary art that manifests indifference to the question of "Beauty". Yet, on the other hand, chromatic pairs mandate a reflexive attitude: we are obliged to ask ourselves the question: why these matches of photos? What do they evoke? What was the intention of the artist?
We must appreciate this artistic work, since, despite belonging to contemporary art, it also aims to bring the traditional investment of Beauty back into the limelight, and in so doing, restores its legitimacy.
Gilles Lipovetsky
Texts / Paintings
SHAPES AND COLOURS AT PLAY
Playful and luminous, Nicole Joye's art-work catches the visitor's eye. First because of the original layout of the paintings but also because of the joyful working process of the artist. It is now on show at Galerie du Pressoir in Ecublens.
Nicole Joye's painting work is abstract and has not been preceded by a figurative period. Ms Joye's pictorial approach
is centered around the notion of game."This idea is very important in my work, she says". The display is playful too: the artist exhibits her work in a particular way: the paintings are tilted, each of them in a different direction as if they had fun together. She deliberately does not frame them. "An image shouldn't be limited, it should have the possibility to extend."Shapes, colours and transparency highlight this playful will with endless possibilities of new images, in an appearance of wanted disorder or organized chaos.
Journal de Bussigny, Lausanne.
There is psychological depth in the paintings of Ms Joye but this is modulated within a highly confined scale. Interestingly enough, small scale and abstract painting is nowadays more associated with an abstraction of emotional indifference, with the techniques of « hard edge » or the monochrome in all its variations. It is as though the project of expressive abstract painting can only be convincing or persuasive enough with the adjunct of exaggerated scale. Ms. Joye’s paintings are strong precisely because she is trying to advance the pleasures of expressive abstraction by going against the prevalent orthodoxy of painting. That they succed technically as well makes her position even more compelling.
Ken Lum
Formas a veces transparentes, capaces de revelar distinctas capas que esconden un enigma donde la mirada se pierde en un intento de desvelamiento. Composiciones de lugar o de idea que separan astutamente nustra mirada de la esencia, del origen de la pintura misma, provocando en nosotros la sospecha de que hay algo que la vision no puede percibir, como si la distancia entre el espectador y el fondo de la tela fuese inabordable.
These often transparent forms are able to reveal various layers concealing an enigma that entrances the gaze in its unravelling. Site-based or idea-based compositions astutely remove our gaze from the essence, from the painting's origins, provoking an uneasiness in the viewer that there is something his or her eyes are unable to perceive, as though the distance between the spectator and the canvas were unbroachable.
Tom Skipp
Nicole Joye's painting work is magic, love, the intoxication of color. Color, color alone triumphs in these abstract and unpredictable spaces. Yet this luxurious chromatic palette is far removed from the formal play of decorative art: it is the very expression of emotional life, in its exuberance and surprises. All may be abstract, yet the flesh of the earth and living bodies continuously engage the eye and the senses of the beholder.
Gilles Lipovetsky
CENTRE CULTUREL DU MANOIR, COLOGNY
It is a mild autumn day in Cologny and the CCM is getting ready for the opening of a new show. The colourful paintings and photos of Nicole Joye are hung with precise geometry on walls which happen not to be always symetrical. Once again, Joëlle Gervaix delights us with her smart capacity at finding true artists. Nicole Joye is one of them. Works from the 2000's, 2010's and 2020's occupy the whole space of this historical building and all of them are a dream.
Tribune Rives-Lac Genève
November 2022
Nicole Joye
Artwork