MATHILDE ROSIER b. 1973

 « The way Mathilde Rosier works finds its starting point in the decision which led her to retire to an isolated building at the heart of a rural and agricultural environment, which has been the central subject of her work for the last 20 years. In the first phase of this research, the artist turned to the history of psychology and to the hypothesis that the only authentic link to nature lies in the unconscious, a relic of our primitive state which contrasts with the civilised and conscious self. For a few years now, these representations of domesticated nature have continued in a new series, where hybrid bodies with vegetal limbs. These images evoke simultaneously the mental experience of dissolution in living things which the artist submits to, the intensity of her link with her environment, and that which is induced by industrial agricultural methods; the immediate kinship between plant and human, and the intensive exploitation of one by the other. If her earlier works were ways of communing with the world, these works are about becoming one with it.
 
Whether treated through paintings, drawings, assemblages, films, costumes, or performances, this theme continues to express itself, in a way which could recall symbolist art, the decorative art of the theatre or ballet, or even the ornaments common in certain Indigenous works. But it is also counterintuitive to think that these images refer to anything but themselves. Rather, they are proof of an “art of attention”, to use Estelle Zhong Mengual’s phrase about naturalist women of the 21st century, who consider nature as a subject and who celebrate a return to it. »

— Excerpt of Thierry Leviez’s for Aware Price 2022

Mathilde Rosier was born in Paris. She lives and works in Burgundy (France) and Basel (Switzerland).
Mathilde Rosier's work stems from her interest in the physical and psychological experience of ancient rites and rituals. She constructs dreamlike situations that allow the viewer to lose all sense of space and time, opening a portal between the conscious and unconscious realms. Mathilde Rosier creates works that comment on and illustrate the need to return to harmonious ways of integrating human activity into the “natural environment”, including pre-industrial practices that may seem anti-rational, by observing the world from the point of view of today's countryside.
Recent solo exhibitions include Champ de vision at the Mucem, Marseille (2023), Les Champs de prospérité Intensive at the Fondation Pernod Ricard in Paris (2023), Le Massacre du printemps at the Museo MADRE, Naples (2020); MASP in Sao Paulo (2020); Figures of Climax of the Impersonal Empire at the Fondazione Guido Ludovico Luzzatto in Milan (2018)
Mathilde Rosier has taken part in several group exhibitions including L'Ecorse, CRAC Alsace, FR (2023), De leur temps, FRAC Grand Large, Dunkerque (2023) , Chry- salis, Centre d'Art Contemporain Genève (2023), Emma Kunst Cosmos, Tabakalera Saint Sebastian (2022), Utopia Distopia: il mito del progresso partendo dal sud, Museo MADRE, Naples (2021); Kosmos Emma Kunz, Aargauer Kunsthaus, Aarau (2021), Me- tamorphoses - Let Everything Happen to You, Castello di Rivoli, Turin (2018)
Her works are part of institutional collections such as those of the Musée d'Art Moderne et Contemporain Strasbourg, the Castello di Rivoli in Turin, the Mu- seum Abteiberg Mönchengladbach, the Museo Madre, Naples, the Centre National des Arts Plastiques in Paris, the Kunsthalle Hamburg, the Fond Art Contemporain in Paris, the MUCEM (Musée des civilisations de l'Europe et de la Mediterrannee) in Marseille, the Julia Stoschek Collection in Düsseldorf Center for Curatorial Studies Bard, US , Nicoletta Fiorucci Foundation, Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Cuneo. Deutsche Bank Frankfurt , DE, Deutsche Bank London, UK, UBS Art Collection.