La Colombière opens for the 2020 European Heritage Days

Chloé Bocquet - Engravings

Chloé Bocquet was born in 1993. Graduating from Le Mans School of Fine Arts in 2017, she discovered engraving during her course and spent time at the Moret studio (Paris) and in the graphic arts section of Leipzig Academy of Fine Arts (HGB) in Germany.   

Since 2017, Chloé Bocquet has taken part in a range of exhibitions, not least in the UK, Excellence of Youth, Woolwich Contemporary Print fair, and Paris, Le Salon des Réalités Nouvelles. Today, her work is represented by the London-based gallery Eames Fine Art.   

During her residency programme, Chloé Bocquet developed three series of printed images, using the techniques of linocuts, monotype or direct copper etching. These are processes she had already embraced as part of her repertoire, but the Loire landscapes which Chloé was able to observe on a daily basis during her residency reinvented this practice with new experimental grounds: colour-dyeing on her paper media using plants found in the Loire Valley (chestnut and walnut leaves or elderberries) and developing a colour palette through plant decoctions. Chloé Bocquet drew inspiration from her encounters with the Loire and the built façade along its banks.  

Diane Hymans - Photographs

Born in 1991, Diane lives in Paris. She started out studying History of Art at the Sorbonne before enrolling in Arles National School of Photography in 2015, graduating in June 2018. Diane harnesses photography as if it were a magnifying glass, homing in on the detail and fragmentation. This medium enables her to engage in introspection from a monocular perspective. She is particularly interested in plants and their portrayals.  

During her residency, Diane Hymans focused her attention on the image of the woman sowing seeds, an ecological and feminist figure, which she juxtaposes with another image – just as symbolic – that of the flower. Through her interpretations, outings, encounters and picking of flowers native to the Loire riverbanks, Diane has soaked up the Loire landscapes. To conclude her residency programme, she intends to design a "symbolic" garden at La Colombière: an installation of 12 images depicting muscular women, reminiscent of the sowing figure (who are seen in a bad light as they are deemed androgynous and at stark odds with the ideals of female beauty), will be displayed alongside adverts for fertilisers or flower seeds, emphasising this pressure to be beautiful – expected both of women and of flowers.  

Useful information

• Venue: La Colombière, 8 rue Foulques Nerra 49350 Chênehutte-Trèves-Cunault ( map )
• Dates: Saturday 19 September, 14.00-18.00 / Sunday 20 September, 10.00-12.00 and 14.00-18.00

Online

The whole of the 2020 Heritage Days programme can be found at:  https://journeesdupatrimoine.culture.gouv.fr/