My ceramics revolve around the image, I paint women and men’s faces inspired by photographs or movie stills; I mix them with my characters and motives. That patchworked thread gather like graphic novels without narration.
Each piece is an ensemble that can also be appreciated square by square, and I invite the observer to project themselves onto my universe and let their imagination run free.
« Mathilde Le Mancq is young. With a little humor we can then ask ourselves if being at an age where memories are still sharp is the reason why she is playing with cubes? And if she is so fond of mystery and crime stories that she writes english captions (sometimes in Old english even) which is quite unexpected and original!
To very geometric volumes she adds some fanciful cones, like giant old tabacco pots. When part of the tiles are purely decoratives (cheked patterns, dots, flowers or all sorts of crosses), her flock of white dotted red mushrooms reminds us of the deadly fly amanita; could it be the transition between the decorative elements and the Artist’s philosophy?
Indeed the rest of the tiles are dedicated to what is « said », drawned or written by Mathilde Le Mancq. A not so optimistic philosophy by the way. Because, if some clowns are laughing or winking at the observer, if a teddy bear has a cheeky look… A statement stands out: « I AM THE QUEEN OF NOTHING »! So young and so desillusioned, she writes elsewhere « All that’s left are the old days », « NOTHING GETS BETTER », « Careful not top step on my […] dreams ». All of that disenchantment can be contradicted by the already mentioned clowns playing their funny role (although some of them are looking somewhat grim), but can be supported by sinister looking players who must have lost everything, by an overextended middle-finger, by a glasses wearing « employee » bored to death, cheek in his hand proclaming « monday fun »…etc
All of her work is made of high fired stoneware; slabs are painted with porcelain slip covered in transparent glaze or just printed and covered with different colors and texture of glazes.
Tu use trendy words, the work of Mathilde Le Mancq combines the intimate and the extimate. Her cubes and cones display a whole range of patterns and various themes that are telling a fantasy full of reminiscence; and the way it is stage gives her work a timeless power.
let’s keep up »
june 2018
(I have done the translation myself and tried to made it as true as possible to the original text by Jeanine Rivais)
mathildelemancq.com 