WHO PUT BELLA IN THE WITCH ELM ?

From 04.12.2024 to 18.01.2025

Ygrec-ENSAPC Art Centre
OPENING HOURS:
Wednesday to Saturday 2pm-7pm
29 rue Henri Barbusse
93300 Aubervilliers

Exhibition view, photo © Objets Pointus

WHO PUT BELLA IN THE WITCH ELM?

Group Show at Ygrec-ENSAPC Art Center
From 04.12.2024 to 18.01.2025
Opening Saturday the 30th of November, 5 pm to 9 pm

With : Mathis Collins, Raphaël Delannoy, Léontine Deslandes, Sveva Diolaiti, Gral et Isadora Guzniczak.

Curator : Gral

The art Center Ygrec hands over the keys to a group of artists and ENSAPC students to manage a project from A to Z: they are responsible for the creation of their works, as well as curating, setting up and mediating the exhibition.

The exhibition has its origins in a news item: the corpse of a woman is discovered one morning in April 1943, in the hollow of a tree planted in the middle of the Worcestershire English countryside. Soon after, anonymous graffities start to appear on the walls of the nearby village, all repeating the same question over a century: « Who put Bella in the Wych Elm? »

Imbued by the surrounding mystery and the rural context in which they are found, those writings evoke the horrific possibilities set in folklore, starting point to the exhibition’s proposition: exploring horror movies artistic heritage. Indeed, despite being unable to find Bella’s murderer, the artists united here take on the transgressive qualities of « horror folk », movie genre that fantasizes about a return to paganism whilst confronting our modern sensibilities to isolated communities with strange beliefs. From then on, the works on display offer a dark folklore, at ease with provocation and disturbance as political tool, outlining the landscapes of a new system in which nature and bodies all dance over the old-world ruins .

Mathis Collins

Born in 1986, lives and works in Paris.
Represented by Crèvecoeur Gallery, Paris.

Mathis Collins studied art in Cergy, Metz, Montreal and Brussels before attending Open School East in London. A Franco-Canadian sculptor and performer, he organises collective workshops and public events around popular and grotesque objects and craft practices that attempt to rethink the ways in which popular art is exhibited. The subjects and materials explored in his work range from harvesting cork oak to decorating a bottle of spirits, from coffee tables to clown shoes, from polychrome bas-reliefs to Poulbots de Paris, from Second Empire caricatures to contemporary experimental art education methods. His work has been shown at the Palais de Tokyo, the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, the Fondation Lafayette Anticipations, Paris, the Friche Belle de Mai in Marseille, the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam, 1m3 in Lausanne and Longtang, Zürich.

Raphaël Delannoy
Born in 2001, lives and works in Paris.

Composed of sculptures and videos, Raphaël Delannoy’s practice approaches blurry universes where symbols (characters, places) from traditional mythological tales are hijacked, henceforth seeking their contemporary connotations. Using ﬁgures drawn from folklore, mythology or video games, his practice proposes stagings where diﬀerent characters mingle to form new narratives, halfway between satire and exquisite corpse. His work has been presented at The Koppel Project in London, Topic space in Geneva, Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in London, and Points communs, new national scene de Cergy-Pontoise. He studied at the École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts de Lyon and is currently studying at the École nationale supérieure d’arts de Paris-Cergy.

Léontine Deslandes
Born in 2000, lives and works in Greater Paris.

Her artistic approach is in the tradition of figurative painting. Using photographic models inspired by everyday life, news images or images from her own imagination, her pictorial process raises questions about representation and the plastic transformations inherent in it. The result of this abundance of images is a syncretism. The artist uses the photographic image as a source to give free rein to her technical imagination and to intensify a form of distancing from reality. This is achieved through the use of stencils, painting knives, scotch tape, irregular brushstrokes, a serif system… According to the artist, this allows for a form of contingency in his process, from which emanates a haptic dimension. She obtained her DNSEP in 2024 from the École nationale supérieure d’arts de Paris-Cergy. Her paintings were exhibited during a residency at the Villa Josa in Namur in 2023, and she has taken part in several group exhibitions, including two at the Halle Roublot in Fontenay-sous-Bois in 2022. She is currently exhibiting at the Tour Orion in Montreuil, as part of the ENSAPC graduates’ exhibition, La Roue de la Fortune.

Sveva Diolaiti
Born in 2001, lives and works in Greater Paris.

Sveva Diolaiti works mainly with wax, which she uses to agglomerate objects related to the body and healthcare in her installations. Wax, melted and modelled, is one of her favourite materials due to its great versatility. Its malleability allows fragile bonds that are liable to change with each variation in temperature or handling. Through wax, she explores the notion of memory, collecting the residues of our passage and observing the traces we leave behind. She seeks to understand, reconstruct and preserve lost moments, suggesting that we interpret memories hidden in matter. Sveva Diolaiti is Italian and currently a fourth-year student at the École nationale supérieure d’arts de Paris-Cergy.

Gral
Born in 1998, lives and works in Greater Paris.

As an artist-researcher, Gral explores the troubled spaces present in our normative systems, using gender, sexuality and the staging of the self as tools for transgression and the reconstruction of representations. Through their practice of photography, performance and academic research, they question the gaze itself, as well as its structural role in our collective imaginations and the future of our identities. Their work has recently been shown at the Sample (2023), the Ygrec Art Centre (2022), the Orion Tower (2024) and as part of the Art au Centre exhibition programme in Liège (2025). They also spoke at scientific events at the Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (2023), the Paris campus of New York University (2023), the Université Rennes 2 (2024) and the Musée de l’Homme (2024). Their research has been published in a number of journals. Gral graduated from the École nationale supérieure d’arts de Paris-Cergy in 2024 and from the Université Panthéon-Sorbonne in 2021.

Isadora Guzniczak
Born in 2001, lives and works in Greater Paris.

Isadora Guzniczak’s artistic and digital practice is inspired by archetypes, folklore, representations of identity and myths. Using objects from her personal life and symbolic representations, she adds complexity to traditional forms, bringing together new technologies and ritual gestures. She creates hybrid sculptures, jewellery and fetishes where the bestial and the funereal meet. She also works in writing, installation and performance. She obtained her DNSEP from the École nationale supérieure d’arts de Paris-Cergy in 2024.