Elodie Antoine, Cerveau matelassé, lycra, pins, padding, 2020
Belgian artist Elodie Antoine, best known for her soft sculptures, explores the potential of materials such us thread, fabric, wallpaper, wool carpet and felt, by allowing them to proliferate and contaminate space in a way natural to them. The hybrid - and very often anthropomorphic - nature of her installations suggests the influence of artists such as Louise Bourgeois, Eva Hesse, Dorothea Tanning, and Matthew Barney. Antoine works with the principle of contradiction : she appropriates artisanal (and domestic) techniques or materials traditionally associated to femininity and combine them with the male universe, like in her famous series of industrial landscapes realized in lace. She also works with the principle of warping, this way exploring processes of (biological) mutation and the disturbing strangeness of everyday life, like in the series of Hair and Chairs.