Black; righteousness, rightness
White; compassion, without judgment
The artist's monochrome paintings suggest neutral grounds on which healthy and authentic relationships are built.
Born in Bangui, Central African Republic in 1990, Gladys Nganare is a painter who has been living and working in Brussels, Belgium for the past 3 years.
Gladys Nganare creates monochrome paintings made from a combination of Japanese paper and painted cotton paper, assembled together and sewn to the canvas using threads. Her works reveal singular paintings with textured surfaces, in which the imperfect edges of the delicately torn papers evoke "imperfect emotional puzzles".
Inspired by the minimalist movement of Dansaekhwa and Pierre Soulages, as well as the Arte Povera movement, in particular the work of Jannis Kounellis, Gladys Nganare's work questions our human relationships and the notion of filiation. The latter relates to the artist's personal history. The symbolism of the thread, of the bond that binds people together, of the ties that are made and unmade, that are knotted, unknotted and knotted again.
Loneliness and attachment. The unspeakable and the non-verbal are all matters dealt with by the artist.
Bonds that are made and unmade, that are knotted, unknotted, knotted again. Papers delicately torn then gathered and sewn on canvas recreate an imperfect emotional puzzle. A solitary process, a laborious work of gesture, a contemplative meticulousness that prepares the path for introspection while the outside world is only movement and tumult. Hostility, incomprehension, diversion and distraction. It is finally in the minimalism that Gladys Nganare tends to express an emotional singularity, a discreet hypersensitivity. Always on the thread.
Work on the layers. Neurotic accumulation. The covering. Large monochrome surfaces that pieces of paper come to accident. Like putting an ointment on a wound that has begun to heal. Hiding a part of oneself from others. Showing the tears but not leaving them bare.
Immobile solitude in a moving ocean, tumultuous and unpredictable. Stuck between the sky and the abyss. Closed in on ourselves, afraid of what surrounds us, of others, of the unknown. To open up to the other, you must first know yourself. Introspection. Contemplation of the self, then diving deep into one's soul. A laborious, meticulous, contemplative and almost meditative practice.
Demultiplication of its being, torn in so many pieces of paper. Need to gather them, to reform this imperfect puzzle of emotions which create our personality. A simple thread will link them together and fix them on the canvas as a pencil links words and makes them live outside of the thought to put them on a sheet of paper.
