OCT 2022
‘Entre chien et loup’ (Between dog and wolf) is an expression that means at dusk or nightfall, the time of day when it is too dark to see the difference between a dog from a wolf. The dog symbolises the day and the protective light, while the wolf represents the night with fears and anxieties. In between there is the doubt and uncertainty of twilight… between dog and wolf.
In this exhibition Cassel is challenging what we think we are seeing. Purposefully concealing a clarity by manipulating scale and context of the everyday objects she paints, she presents works which defy any immediate identifications or conclusions. As in between dog and wolf, where neither is recognisable, these works sit resolutely in that uncertain in between – where Cassel presents for us opportunities for exploration and discovery.
Cassel says of her paintings: “I work by analogy, by link, using cutting and collage to elaborate unique constructions. My paintings are inspired by elements of reality that have been transformed, mistreated, disembodied in order to be reborn by extraction, by change of scale, within a new context. These multiple possibilities or combinations allow for suggestive and surprising encounters.”
Caroline Cassel lives and works in Paris, where she graduated from the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux Arts. Cassel was then awarded a residency at the Crypt d’Orsay in Paris and also the Colin Lefranc Scholarship at Curtin University in Perth.
Image: L’oeuf (The Egg). 2022. Oil on linen, 80 x 80CM