PARIS.- ‘‘Babyliss,” the second personal exhibition of Servane Mary at Triple V gallery, is an occasion for the artist to present an ensemble of new works: photographs of women riding motorbikes blown up in size and then printed on metal. The work is set in pleats, hence the title referring to the famous curling iron which was a sensation in the 1980s.

The structures ripple in steel or copper that serve as the photo’s support; through this passage into the three dimensions, they suggest a “reverse-side” of the image, and the possibility to access its other side or depth.

These new works are inscribed into the continuity of recent work from Servane Mary in which the artist transfers found photos (principally portraits of women from 1940 to 1970) onto unexpected materials with unusual printing techniques. We can experience the original significance of this imagery as well as our own perception of these images today.

IN CONVERSATION WITH SERVANE MARY
Tell us about the title of the exposition “Babyliss” which returns to the imagery of women and consumerization. Is there a new reference to your pop inspiration?
The title refers to the name given to the curling iron that was popular in the 1960s and that women used to curl their hair. It is a reference to the wavy reliefs of the works that are going to be presented during the exposition in September at Triple V gallery. I trace the title back to Olivier Mosset, who on seeing the pieces in the New York studio, told me that he’s made a canvas in a similar form (the curves were in a horizontal sense contrary, as opposed to mine that are vertical) and that Sylvie Fleury had named Babyliss.

What works are you going to show during “Babyliss?”
There will be pieces in metal: copper, painted steel (similar to the bodywork of a car), and aluminum. The sheets were inkjet printed when flat and then sent to the metal studio to be curved. They are printed with recuperated images from the 1950s of women motorcyclists.

You have worked for a long time with light supports: silk, Mylar… How do you consider the movement to a rigid support such as those presented for “Babyliss,” copper or metal? Is there a link between the support and the subject?
It always operates on the rapport between the choice of the image and the material on which I transfer it. Previously in the the use of silk as survival blankets or in glass, I transferred the images of women working in ammunition factories during WWII, activists or even cowgirls who reflected strength and fragility at the same time. The temporality of the position of women when they are given a certain power is a question I often ask in my work. The use of more solid materials gives me a much bigger satisfaction in terms of preservation and durability. It involves a stronger link than collective history and its preservation.

You started as a painter, and today, you work with printing techniques. What continuity do you express between painting and the medium practiced today?
My first paintings, after finishing the National School of Decorative Arts in Paris, were large oil canvases painted from my own photos. I then abandoned the use of private photos to begin using press photos. I always worked with images; it’s the only the medium that has changed. At the start, painting was a natural extension from what I had learned at school. It took me a certain amount of time to abandon. But 6 months after moving to New York, I realised that painting did not make sense for me because I was no longer interested in the medium. My interest was carried by the image. I started to work with the printed image, and I continued to put in place this sort of archive on which I still work today in an act of “refiguration.”

Servane Mary was born in 1971. She lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

Servane Mary is working with appropriated press images of women from the 1940s, to the ‘70s, some of whom are heroes of her, some who are seen as anti-heroes, who are often misunderstood or mis-represented.

This act of «re-figuration» explores the connections between representation, identity, history and memory, and in which she treats photographs as physical entities. They reveal traces of the passage of time, fading and deterioration, a surface that parallels our own recollection and the human mind. They are carried on materials and supports that encourage a reevaluation of the subjects, allow for the inclusion of the viewer, and destabilize the idea of a fixed position vis-a-vis our place in the world.

A catalogue will accompany the exhibition in September 2016.