Termuco, Chile, 1983.
She explores the relationship between the piece and the spectator, from a philosophical point of view. The central theme of Pooley's painting is the human figure, the body. With this purpose, she translates the vision of the philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty, a follower of Sartre, known as "the Phenomenology of Perception". Here, she defends the view of the human being as a global unit.
The body is not a set of meat and organs where the mind is enclosed. The body is gestures, it is intention and expression. It explains and reaffirms itself in each of its movements. We are perceptual consciousness. This is why Christiane Pooley fragments her figures, makes them disappear or blurs the silhouette of the bodies represented. She obliges us to use perception and obliges us to complete the figures. She appeals to our principal vision and to our imagination. She projects the perspective and reassembles the horizon. Through our eyes, we see what is not drawn. We sense glances from the empty faces. We complete the absence of arms and legs. There is a balanced relationship between the work and the spectator.
As the very act of painting forms part of the communicative process of the work, she shows confidence in each stroke. We can almost follow the movement of the artist's wrist, following the stroke of the paint. Sometimes the paint spills on the canvas when she saturates the brush, and we discover the spontaneity of the gesture. There is no dissimulation in her actions, there is no pose or concealment. The author holds out her hand to the spectator without feeling shame or pride for doing so, she simply takes her place in the world.
She lives and works in Paris.
Works in the collection:
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