Mala Madre
22 Feb, 2024
This work strikes the spectator as almost painted in aquarelle. The warm colours carry a gust of vintage winds and pull us back to a place long gone - or maybe only existent in the fading memories of the ones left behind. Celine’s unmistakable aesthetic tells the fairy-tale of grave robbers, of innocence lost and of better days that haven’t come. Blurred, like seen through a film of tears or smeared with muddy fingers, the style emphasises the stories hardship brilliantly. Weariness and relinquishment stand side by side in a folktale, to surreal to be believed and too harsh to be forgotten. Words by Gomma (Laura Estelle Barmwoldt) Artist statement: "Mala Madre" is the name of a plant I discovered in a cemetery in Venezuela. There, at dusk, men come to dig up bodies and find the remains of gold. Shrouds fill the ground and souls wander restlessly. I was fascinated by this plant, its beauty and the way it made this place its own. Its simple presence gave life to this totally desecrated place. I was obsessed by her discovery. She had opened a breach in my own history, my deepest intimacy. I imagined a tale of a woman who waits for her love, he won't come, she's faded, her imagined children are nothing but tears and her big sadness transforms her into Mala Madre. She becomes the mother of all lost souls : the "Dejados atras". In this desert, I crossed the limbo of a world on the edge of a precipice, with the last souls who survive of this extreme crisis Since 2015, due to the social crisis, five million people have left the country, leaving behind their children, there are 2.5 millions orphans known as the "Dejados atrás" (those left behind). The tale, allowed me to open a dialogue between the supernatural and this tragic reality.
Celine Croze is a visual artist from morocco, based in Paris, with a background in cinema. She is represented by Sit Down Gallery. Sensitive to the cracks in our society, Celine uses cinematic codes to transgress the world around her and get inside the fault lines of those she watches. Her work has been presented at the Rencontres internationales de la photographie de Fès, the Billboard Festival in Casablanca and Istanbul, the Marrakech and Paraguay Biennales, the Kassel Festival, the Tbilisi Festival, the Villa Perochon, the Festival du Regard in Cergy, Paris Photo, the Mudima Foundation and most recently at the Manuel Rivera Ortiz Foundation at the Rencontres de Arles 2023. In 2019, she won the Prix Révélation at the Face à la mer festival and the Festival Map with her "SQEVNV" series. In 2020, she wins the Mentor prize for her project "Mala Madre". In 2021, she is one of the finalists for the HSBC prize with "SQEVNV", and wins the audience prize at the Festival Planches Contact in Deauville for her "Silence Insolent" series. In 2022, her book "Siempre Que", published by Lamaindonne, won the Prix Nadar.