Drawing is at the heart of the work of the duo Lamarche & Ovize, active since 2006. Their sketchbooks gather references to comics, classical painting and plant motifs close to the world of the decorative arts.
Through assemblage and a blurring of scales, tame motifs become wild and lush. The line then unfolds into volume in installations combining drawing with sculpture, photography, graphic design and objects. These hybrid environments are only a pause in the work, which is conceived as a continuous flow of research, a constant reworking of the forms and signs used.
Florentine and Alexandre Lamarche-Ovize seek to root their artistic practice in life. To this end, they pursue research into the link between art and craft. This time, they chose to immerse themselves in the world of the gastronomic restaurant Mirazur in Menton.
Created in 2006 by three-Michelin-star chef Mauro Colagreco, the restaurant offers a new experience of gastronomy, in which nature and the environment are central. Mirazur serves local, seasonal cuisine inspired by the vegetables, fruit, flowers and herbs grown in the chef’s five hectares of biodynamic gardens.
This collaboration with the Mediterranean estate enabled the duo to create works that resonate with this nature.
The duo wishes to reveal the passing of the seasons in the Mirazur gardens and how it translates onto the plate.
The exhibition bears witness to their research and experiments, presenting extracts from the sketchbooks of the artists and also of the cooks. These sketchbooks form an image bank from which the two artists draw forms, motifs and compositions.
These creations resonate with earlier works staging the idea of nature’s cycles. The sun, the moon and the flow of water are thus recurring elements in their work.
Moreover, many of the duo’s works are rooted in the theories of Élisée Reclus. This geographer, who took part in the Paris Commune, the popular revolutionary movement of 1871, advocated the defence of nature and its specificities, as a forerunner of ecological research.
Lamarche & Ovize also aim to convey the experience of the gardens within the exhibition space, intertwining outside and inside, nature and culture. To this end, the couple made oyas for the Mirazur gardens: semi-buried earthenware pots that collect water and release it into the soil. This ancient irrigation system has also been transposed into the exhibition spaces.
To complete the experience and transport visitors to Menton’s green haven, Lamarche-Ovize called on Olivier Maure, independent perfumer and manager of Accords et Parfums in Spéracèdes, and Alain Joncheray, scent designer, to give the exhibition an olfactory dimension.
Through their profuse works, the duo reflects on how to move through our times with respect and poetry.
