Opening: Friday, September 13, 6 PM
Exhibition: September 13 — October 26, 2024
Mai 36 Galerie is pleased to present paintings by Aimée Moreau (1926-2023) in an exhibition curated by artist, friend and collector Ian Anüll.
In her long life, Aimée Moreau created a small body of work characterised by an impressive attention to detail. In the style of Neue Sachlichkeit, she captured objects from her immediate everyday life where the seemingly banal is given a special appreciation through her precise, painterly realisation.
Aimée Moreau grew up in Paris. At the age of 16, she attended the Académie de Montmartre and the Grande Chaumière. From 1945-1948, she studied painting at the École Paul Colin. During these years, Aimée Moreau worked with a palette knife, creating paintings that range between figuration and abstraction. After her studies, she spent some time in Switzerland. In 1956 she moved to Boston with her husband and two daughters and continued living in New York from 1959 to 1971. It was there that her style changed and she turned entirely to painting almost inanimate nature.
Moreau's vanitas-like still lifes also reveal the transience of everyday life. Viewers gaze at bizarre constellations of half-empty or empty wine bottles, tinctures, broken glass and dead animals hanging upside down, arranged in a spontaneous disjointedness.
It is remarkable how the artist engages with objects and their materiality, as well as the stories they carry within them. For Aimée Moreau's conception of images, the relationships that are established between the things are significant. What is depicted connects, exchanges, forms spaces and unfolds a poetic force. Her paintings are characterised by a concentrated stillness and a strong presence. Aimée Moreau's Natures mortes are thus transformed into tableaux vivants.
Aimée Moreau's work has been included in the following gallery and institutional exhibitions: Nexus Gallery, Boston 1957; Galerie Jean Camion, Paris 1962; Centre culturel, Neuchâtel 1975; Cabinet d'Art, Château de Renens 1976 and 1983; Galerie Virus, Lausanne 1978; Galerie St Léger, Genève 1980 and 1982; Musée Rath, Genève 1980; Galerie de la Cathédrale de Fribourg 1982; Galerie du Lac, Nyon 1993, 1996 and 1998; Société Mutuelle des Artistes, 1998, 2001 and 2011; MAMCO, 2015; Haus für Kunst Altdorf, 2017; Museum Haus für Kunst Uri, 2021 and Galerie Edition Z, Coire, 2021. Her works are part of the collection of the MAMCO and the Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts, Lausanne, among others.