Amanda Sthers unveils her very first exhibition, "The day after, everything changed"
The writer steps out of her frame and unveils her very first exhibition at Galerie 75 Faubourg, “The next day, everything has changed”, a new exercise that is often funny, sometimes heartbreaking.
Fifteen years ago, Amanda Sthers stumbled across a fairly old photo at a flea market, the portrait of a young woman, anonymous, abandoned in a box near some broken dolls. She seems to be beckoning him, so she buys him, and back home, invents another destiny for him through the writing of an imaginary letter addressed to him. This is how a long adventure begins, from flea markets to garage sales, where the writer collects weak clues - dates on the back of photos, first names, places - to tell stories, of children, of families, couples who get married, others who find it difficult to pretend in front of the camera, thus creating a whimsical world. Sometimes she associates objects with them - a hanger, a brooch, a notebook - or creates a link with other photographs. "There is in this exercise everything that my life as an artist has led me to do," she comments, a few minutes before the opening. “It mixes empathy, imagination, observation, aesthetics, the ability to sketch a story in a few sentences. »
Not all the characters are good guys, certainly not the ones in the World War II-dated photos, but Amanda Sthers makes them endearing, invites forgiveness. It is sometimes written in Italian, there is even one in German, many in English, the majority in French. Instead of being nameless ghosts in the dust, they become, once passed through the hands of the writer, the heroes of a moment of life. “ The photo had to call me. I didn't force myself. It's all made up, but I wish someone would tell me 'amazing, that's my great-grandfather in the picture! »
While she imagines her work adorning only the walls of her house in Marseille, her friend Katy Wellesley Wesley, who works in galleries in London, allows her to think that she was in fact creating works of art. Art, meant to be seen. A sudden bulimia follows and Amanda can't stop, creating more than 130 works. Then the curator Laura Serani falls in love with the project, and this is how this secret so well kept all these years becomes public, on the occasion of an exhibition throughout the month of December. “Everything is for sale, but basically I hope to recover everything,” jokes the artist, very attached to this project. “I finally understand the painters who find it difficult to part with their canvases! »
Exhibition from December 2 to 23, 2022, Monday to Friday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., www.galerie75faubourg.com
