Invisible presences

Exhibition curator
Théo Bellanger

As an artist agent, I am delighted to have been invited by Galerie LOFT in Paris to present the work of four artists whose creative journeys I have the pleasure of accompanying.

This exhibition, the result of a unique collaboration with gallerists Jean-François Roudillon and Yu-Wen Huang, invites you to perceive invisible presences—silent presence-absences nestled within painting and photography. Something emerges from these works: open doors to mysteries and sensations. Everything seems to transcend reality, slowly, like an almost imperceptible sound carried by the wind, drawing us into an imaginary realm rooted in memory and reminiscence. These invisible presences are the gazes of artists who see beyond the real, striving to capture the infinitely small and the infinitely vast. They touch upon what eludes the common eye.

Rita Alaoui opens doors to mysterious vegetal worlds where traces of humanity seem to have vanished. She immerses us in a timeless realm populated by monumental imaginary plants. Are they dancing? Are they totems? Are they part of a magical forest? Rita’s dual perspective—of contemplation and fascination—extracts the ineffable essence of things.

Mathias Bensimon explores light and matter as presence-absence in an ever-expanding universe. His works are imaginary portraits of light, born of intuition. He creates a serene, intimate atmosphere that borders on meditation. His colors serve as the tangible manifestation of emotions and the painter’s attentive engagement with his surroundings.

Solène Kerlo, meanwhile, invokes ancient narratives and the symbols of vanished civilizations through a raw, primal style where unprocessed pigment clashes powerfully with oil paint. The result is a chant from elsewhere, a psalmody that awakens the senses and conveys a universal language of Life and Death. The traces she creates rise like primitive ritual signs, recalling the origins of Art itself.

In her analog photography series titled “Epilogue”, Astrid Staes presents the final echo before silence. “Epilogue” captures a motionless, suspended life. These photographs are nuptials of ashes, where objects become relics—a jackhammer, a cup, an empty chair. Someone has departed. This series reflects an endpoint, the moment silence settles after a long story. A faint mist lingers, waiting to dissipate before a new prologue begins.

These invisible presences are, in a way, reminiscent of the collection I might have dreamed of as a younger person—the kind of art I would have imagined gracing the walls of my small student apartment. They inspire me and feed my imagination. I invite you to recall the artistic collection you might have aspired to as a youth. The gallery thus presents a portfolio of imagined fragments: dreamed colors, seen or heard sounds, and desired textures. These elements come together in the works of these artists who inspire and energize me.