Véronique Sablery with time by Jean-Paul Gavard-Perret
Véronique Sablery transfigures here the desperate silences and muted voices in such a place.
“Etats Dames” is a meeting with ladies. Not just any ones. And not just anywhere.
Founded around 1060 by Mathilde of Flanders, Duchess of Normandy and wife of William the Conqueror, the Abbaye aux Dames housed Benedictine nuns before becoming a barracks, a Hôtel-Dieu, a hospice then, restored, the headquarters of the Region Normandy.
In the abbey church of the Abbaye aux Dames, Queen Mathilde has her tomb. She rests in the choir under a slab of black marble from Tournai soberly topped with a large glass, the name of Mathilde of Flanders is engraved in the black stone placed in the choir of the church where she rests. In the cloister, two large paintings by Eustache Restout, one representing Sisters Martha and Mary listening to Christ, the other The Samaritan Woman at Jacob’s Well.
In such a context Véronique Sablery took photographs on paper or glass. The artist modified any outdated vision by capturing floral or plant elements and certain details from Eustache Restout’s paintings. But here nothing remains stuck in the sepulchral order.
The artist does not just honor the dead but inserts a form of life into this place. Various types of veins emerge in an effect of diaphaneity and translucency of such works. They become visa poems. The beyond stops at their borders and leaves room for hope without accentuated connotations of religiosity. Sometimes a simple loyalty ring on a woman’s index finger is a sign.
Jean-Paul Gavard-Perret
Véronique Sablery, “Etats dames”, Abbaye aux Dames, Place de la Reine Mathilde 14000 Caen from October 18 to December 1, 2024.
