French artist Mathilde Denize moves seamlessly between multiple mediums—from painting to sculpture and installation—to explore the concept of Gesamtkunstwerk, or “a total work of art,” a notion developed by the early avant-gardes. The result is a fluid orchestration of disparate materials, textures and patterns, fluctuating through space to form a harmonious continuity within interactive, multisensory, poetic and imaginative universes.
In her just-opened show at Perrotin New York, repurposed fragments of canvases become suspended painterly costumes, evoking the presence of the body while fostering an interplay between fragmentation and fluid continuity—between these material presences, the space and the viewer. On the wall, swaths of pastel colors float across the canvas, their dynamic ensemble forming new, indecipherable combinations. Purposefully resisting a final, easily recognizable form, they linger in a nebulous limbo of transformation and potential change.
“This interplay between mediums creates a fluid exchange between two-dimensional and three-dimensional realms, allowing the work to transcend traditional boundaries,” Denize tells Observer during a walkthrough of the exhibition a few days after the opening. “For me, the work is based on staging the pieces in space. Having studied theater and worked for a long time in cinema, I have a strong appreciation for arranging elements in relation to each other and an obsession with balance. The arrangement happens gradually as the shapes appear. The idea is to play with the elements and present a vibrant whole.”
Like a constellation of cosmic particles assembling into new aesthetic forms, the colors and atmospheres that traverse Denize’s media become choreographies of elements animated by a distinct, melodic energy. It is no coincidence that the show’s title, “Sound of Figures,” conjures this musical dimension. “I named the exhibition to evoke the feeling that the energy of a work of art, an object, a sound, a song or a gesture can provoke in each of us,” says Denize as she moves among her works. “I sought a physical and poetic sensation that one can feel in front of these strange, carnivalesque, suspended figures, like a resonance with our own bodies, all different and sensitive. One can speak of melody in an exhibition; different sounds often pass through us if we take the time to listen to them, vibratory energies that nourish thought.”
For her second show with the gallery, Mathilde Denize has transformed the space into a stage for an overflow of multisensorial inputs that shape a “permeable atmosphere,” where all the elements appear as part of a network of interdependencies, amplifying their symbolic and almost totemic presence. “The exhibition is conceived as a unified whole, where each element is in dialogue with the others. The motifs present within the paintings also extend beyond the canvas, taking form in ceramics or being sculpted directly onto the painted surfaces,” she explains. The elements in the space invite visitors to engage on a multisensory level, transforming the space into an interactive environment to train perception, activate sensations and foster imagination. “By incorporating both flat and sculptural elements, the installation invites the viewer to explore the relationship between space, texture and form.”
In particular, the painterly garments hanging from the ceiling dynamically engage the gallery, already suggesting bodily movement and organic life within them as they fluctuate, following different rhythms dictated by the surrounding atmosphere. Many of Denize’s works are conceived as “wearable” paintings or sculptures that can be activated in elegant performances. “The activation of the painted costumes was an obvious answer to the body and its theatricality. Without ever showing the narrative of the body, I wanted to work with what presence can be, and this is still what interests me today,” she says. Here, she sought to bring in a little of the physical, opening up as many possible stories by putting into motion the fragile scope of a bodily envelope while trying to inject as little fixed narrative as possible.
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In this sense, Denize’s art deeply embraces these concepts, linking her practice to the legacy of Modernism and abstraction, born from a desire to envision an entirely new world. Her works reveal a rich set of references and precedents, primarily tied to early avant-garde research and, in particular, their theories of integrating disciplines within society to achieve impact through art. “My sources of inspiration are very diverse, and I can look at Hilma af Klint, a Lynch film, a painting by a friend, a piece of clothing draped over a chair—everything is aligned on the same level. What matters is the universe that is created and the line.”
At the same time, Denize emphasizes how her work proceeds through intuition, with shapes and colors emerging spontaneously in the process. “The fact that I don’t choose my colors but instead recycle what I get from film sets allows me to play even more with my own boundaries,” she says. “By not selecting pigments, colors and materials, I push away the decisions I might have made initially, and that’s what I seek—not limiting myself to my own taste, being surprised, stepping out of a potential domination of good taste or decorative painting.”
More importantly, all the elements in the space share this sensation of fluidity and hybridity, as if they emerged from random yet divinatory, cross-disciplinary assemblages—fertile grounds for new meanings. The fluidity in her painting style produces a flowing materiality, suggesting unstrained malleability and endless transformative possibilities, qualities equally embodied in her sculptures.
Everything in the space appears submerged or made of
Maintaining a primarily abstract language, her paintings seem not only to evoke but to procedurally inhabit this marine, aquatic and almost magical dimension—where fluctuating elements and particles continue searching for a final shape to archive and evolve.
In what she describes as landscapes, Denize’s “fluid expanses” already visualize these permeable atmospheres—virtual environs of her canvases that exist in osmotic dialogue with their surroundings. “I’m not sure I can speak of a search for pure abstraction focused solely on shapes and colors. I would rather speak of motifs and signs, a large, watery, fluid puzzle where the forms could even move from one canvas to another without encountering major difficulties in forming a new balance.”
Across cultures, myths and spiritual beliefs have framed
The artist’s archaeological repurposing of fragments and leftovers, recirculating within her studio and process, already suggests a more sustainable approach to artistic creation. At the same time, this method of art-making forges compelling links to how our minds process memories and construct meaning—how the psyche blends existing materials and knowledge with the continuous influx of new stimuli from the outside world. “Memory always integrates fragments, scattered pieces, so the studio becomes a perfect playground to engage with all these layers that populate our thoughts. Just like when we remember, the work in the studio is a game of perpetual repositioning,” comments the artist. “The fragments that populate my work are important because they allow me great freedom of assembly. A decision is crucial when joining pieces together—it’s an attempt at creation. But afterward, everything can be peeled apart and reassembled, like a dream within a dream.”
As Jung suggested, when trapped psychic energy is released, it seeks new expression through symbolic forms. Once these internal images recirculate in new shapes, the resulting aesthetic compositions pulse with a kind of psychedelic dynamism. The solidity of a color plane blends with more fluid passages, generating a sense of vibrant, transformative and continuously shifting energy. The exhibition space itself becomes a site of both physical and psychological flux, where things are in constant motion, morphing and interacting in unexpected, exhilarating ways—forming a “vibrant whole” where intellect and instinct, conscious and subconscious, blend. “Having studied theater and worked for a long time in cinema, I have a strong appreciation for arranging elements in relation to each other and an obsession with balance. The arrangement happens gradually as the shapes appear.”
Ultimately, by orchestrating an eclectic and seemingly chaotic array of elements, Denize aims to create what she calls a “vibrant whole”—a sensorial, sonic aesthetic space that invites awareness of the internal flux of transformation to which all things are subjected.
Mathilde Denize’s “Sound of Figures” is on view at Perrotin, New York, through February 19.
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