Sonámbulo

Galería Marta Cervera has the honor to present Sonámbulo, a two-person show by Charlotte Moth and Xie Lei.

The exhibition will be on view from the 18th of May until the 22nd of July, 2023.

The fantasy is great. Increased, multiple, ascending. A poem by Lorca. A trip to Florence. The viewing of the frescoes by Fra Angelico at the convent of San Marco and the visit to the Brancacci Chapel under a restoration process. The discovery of frescoes by Masaccio, Masolino and Lippi between the scaffolds. Along with all that, the friendship between two artists that live in the same city (Paris), realizing their first collaboration in the form of an exhibition. Distinct elements overlap in this Sonámbulo, which before being a subject is a perceptive state. The turns and inversions result in unexpected transfers from one form to another that bring about two parallel and different worlds that sleepwalking enables. A state close to lucidity, of being half-sleep, capable of making us see, but also to glimpse. From that miscellaneous perceptive, close to what we experience in a humid forest where it is possible to recognize sharp elements cut out against a background, areas of focal ambiguity, here emerges a selection of works that give shape to this exhibition.

The «verde que te quiero verde. / Verde viento. / Verdes ramas» («green I love you green / Green the wind. / Green the leaves») that runs through Lorca’s poem Romance Sonámbulo is both a perceptive evocation and a calling. Xie Lei’s canvases in different formats assume this condition but they do so by exploring the transition from night to day, and from late afternoon to early evening. Temporary passages of change and restlessness where the observed acquires another type of sharpness and images are mutable, diffuse, imaginary. Close to such motivations, Charlotte Moth’s artistic practice allows us to attend some of the patterns that foster our sets of experiences. In order to do this, she revises architectural heritage and its special transference to photographic and sculptural languages; the continuity between images and the written word; the indiscernibility between fiction and reality and the areas in which both materials come into contact.

The methodology of associations in Sonámbulo gives way to the possible combinations between the elements that construct it. Each one of them builds an environment and a succession of states and continuities. However, relationships do not give one-directional results. Thus, the formal links between planes, textures and volumes that are present in the photographs appear transformed into the sculptural objects placed on the shelves. The jacket covered in golden hair, could be an extension of the polenta-covered foliage that floods the canvases, but it could also be referring to Fra Angelico’s gold leaf or the visual imbalance that occurs with the abrupt transition from sunlight to twilight. It is within this transfer of uncertain temporality, that a new context is being proposed to us.

- Mariano Mayer

Charlotte Moth (Carshalton, UK, 1978) lives and works in Paris. She received her MFA at Slade School of Art in London and was a researcher at the Jan van Eyck Academie in Maastricht, NL. Solo exhibitions of her work have been held at Galerie Marcelle Alix, Paris, FR, CA2M -Centro Arte Dos de Mayo, Madrid, ES; M.I.T List Visual Arts Centre, Boston, U.S.A, Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein, LI; Archive Room Tate Britain, London, U.K; Parc Saint Leger, Pougues-les-Eaux, FR, De Vleeshal, Middelburg, N.L; Esker Foundation, Calgary, CA; Centre d'Art contemporain de Genève, CH; The Serralves Foundation in Porto, PT, Musée départemental d'art contemporain de Rochechouart, FR. In 2017 she was nominated for the Prix Marcel Duchamp where she made a site-specific installation at the Centre Pompidou in Paris with sculptures borrowed from the ‘Conservation des Œuvres d’Art Religieuses et Civiles Direction des Affaires Culturelles de la Ville de Paris’. Recently, Charlotte made an intervention at the Institut Giacometti in Paris. In 2024, she will have a solo exhibition at MAMC+/Musée d’art moderne et contemporain, St Etienne, FR.

Xie Lei (Anhui, China, 1983) lives and works in Paris. He graduated from the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, received his MFA and a PhD at the École des Beaux-Arts Paris, obtaining in both occasions a Very Honorable Unanimous Jury Congratulations. Solo exhibitions of his work have been held at Lyles & King, New York, U.S.A; Semiose, Paris, FR; Meessen De Clerq, Brussels, BE; Palais des Beaux-Arts, Paris, FR; Galerie Anne de Villepoix, Paris, FR; Fondation Yishu8, Beijing, CN. His work has shown at CAPC Musée d'art contemporain de Bordeaux, Bordeaux, FR; MO.CO, Montpellier, FR; C3A Córdoba, ES; Collection Lambert, Avignon, FR; Mendes Wood DM, São Paulo, BR; Institut Français, Madrid, ES; Simon Lee, London, U.K; GRIMM, London, U.K; MAC VAL, Vitre-sur-Seine, FR; Beaux-arts de Nantes, FR; PS120, Berlin, DE; Saint-Remi Museum, Reims, FR; Musée national de l'histoire de l'immigration, Paris, FR; Langen Foundation, Neuss, DE; Fondation d'entreprise Ricard, Paris, FR. As a member of the Académie de France in Madrid, Xie Lei has completed a year-long residency at Casa de Velázquez in 2021. In autumn 2023 Xie Lei will have a solo exhibition at Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris.