Nicolas Party, l'Heure mauve

Nicolas Party, l'Heure mauve
Bénédicte Ramade
5 Continents, 2022

The volume Nicolas Party | L'Heure Mauve collects a vast visual epic in which Party plays a variety of roles, sometimes impersonating the artist, others the scenographer, the conservator, or the sculptor. His work, and the title of the show, are inspired by L'Heure Mauve, a piece created in 1921 by the Canadian painter Ozlas Leduc that highlights the different interpretations given to the relationship between man and nature throughout the history of art. The result is a constantly changing natural environment: it can be a place full of danger and catastrophe, a territory to be conquered, an expanse disseminated with ancient ruins, or even silences where there are no traces of human presence. Nature finally becomes the theater for the Anthropocene, its connection with humanity by now inextricable, and the passing of time and the finiteness of existence make way for a feeling of melancholy.