Guided tour of Lucile Boutin’s exhibition

Lucile Boutin was born in Paris in 1995. She will graduate from the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Lyon in 2021.

Lucile Boutin approaches drawing (charcoal, pastel, pencil) as a slow, meticulous process of composition. Her world oscillates between depictions of manual labor and dreamlike visions inspired by the surrealism of Konrad Klapheck or the burlesque gaze of Domenico Gnoli and Jacques Tati. His drawings feature anonymous figures absorbed in repetitive tasks. Particular attention is paid to details: factory piping networks, reflections of earthenware tiles, or the bright colors of candy, transforming his drawings into intriguing microcosms, like portholes into other realities. His frontal compositions are inspired by Brutalist architecture and modern sectional plans, particularly those of the Paris suburbs. Reinforced concrete, emblematic of the Trente Glorieuses, feeds his aesthetic and political reflections, and the figures, often with ghostly faces, perform tasks in interiors while seeming to evade them, suspended in a frozen, almost introspective time.