Mezzanine Sud 2023
Prix des Amis des Abattoirs
Selected by a jury, the winners receive exhibition space, a production budget and honoraria. Today, the prize continues to gain regional and national recognition, and serves as a springboard for most of the winning artists (acquisitions into public collections, new exhibition projects, etc.).
The 2023 winners are
- Margaux Fontaine
- Matthieu Habérard
- Rayan Yasmineh
Presentation of the edition:
Each new edition of the Mezzanine Sud prize highlights the diversity of artistic languages and the multiple energies of the young generation of artists.
Once again this year, the three prize-winners showcase singular universes tinged with diverse and unusual influences. Feminism, ecology, crafts, the Middle Ages and syncretism between East and West inspire their creations, using media such as drawing, assemblage, crafts and oil painting. These artists appropriate cultures and representations to take a fresh look at the world around them. Through the art of assemblage, mixing different eras, references and materials, each artist unfolds a narrative structure in which multiple identities are embodied.
Margaux Fontaine
Margaux Fontaine is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice focuses on the image. Her research reflects her vision of the world from a feminist perspective, and advocates the omnipotence of nature over contemporary societies. Borrowing symbols from a variety of cultures, she combines images in a 'Creole' work, collaging ideas that would not normally be associated to recreate an idealised, ungendered, timeless world. The figure of the witch is central to this work as a symbol of emancipation.
Matthieu Haberard
Nurtured by the world of merchandise, and in particular children's toys, Matthieu Haberard's sculptural practice cultivates the art of the counterpoint. Rejecting any recourse to advanced technological tools, he celebrates the handmade and, like an amateur craftsman, makes composite, low-tech and often ridiculous objects. He adopts a playful and critical retreat from his time, drawing his thematic sources from the mystical and fantasised Middle Ages, as well as from a theorisation of Fantasy.
Rayan Yasmineh
Rayan Yasmineh freely appropriates the codes of art history, consciously oscillating between perpetuating tradition and breaking with convention. In his portraits, he combines Middle Eastern culture, myths and Mesopotamian iconography with contemporary Western identities by introducing anachronistic references. He explains: "The expression of this double iconography in my work is the manifestation of a plural identity, Arab and European, which breaks with the supposed adversity of the concepts of East and West". His oil paintings combine a profusion of ornamental details and shimmering colours with a masterly construction of lines and planes.
With the support of Les Amis des Abattoirs
