The work of Hélène Delprat is often influenced by a great work of literature. THE NAUTILUS ROOM was made in response to the science fiction classic, published in 1870, Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. ‘I’ve been thinking about the Nautilus, Captain Nemo’s submarine. Here, neither ornaments, nor sophisticated furniture: in a dark and naked living room, you do not see the seabed but a kind of diorama – lost luminous images, hybridizations of works. Reminiscences of visits to the Campo Santo in Pisa “mixed” with details of my paintings, cartoons, memories of wallpapers in nasty children’s bedrooms, or a luminous Sphinx. I am – or rather my clone is – immobile in the center of this room, waiting, listening to voices, observing.’
Hélène Delprat (born in 1957 in Amiens, France) works across a variety of genres (writing, painting, drawing, radio, documentary, and video) that testify to her omnivorous curiosity. She synthesizes disparate periods to create a singular conceptual and pictorial universe both melancholic and humorous at the same time. Delprat lives in Paris.
