Sophie Bueno-Boutellier @ The Approach

An exhibition of new paintings by the French, Berlin-based artist, Sophie Bueno-Boutellier. Le Don de Gaïa is the second part of a trilogy of exhibitions reassessing the feminine and addressing reproductive labour, which Bueno-Boutellier began with La Ritournelle du Peuple des Cuisines at the Fondation d’entreprise Ricard, Paris in 2016.
Bueno-Boutellier’s signature gesture of cutting, folding and wrapping raw, unstretched canvas reveals her simultaneous engagement with painting as a pictorial surface and a textile material. The paintings defy the standard of an image plane and instead possess cavernous insides, as if holding or withholding something. The viewer is inclined to lean in and move around the painting to inspect the hidden surfaces within or behind folds, creating an experience of intimacy through the act of looking closely and employing the whole body to this end.