Amandine Urruty: Wunderkammers & The Monocromatic Dream State
Building a wunderkammer is a surrealist exercise, in a way,” Paris-based Amandine Urruty explains of the cabinet of curiosities motif that appears in her work. “I tend to gather objects I like, ‘90’s toys, luxury vases, miniature chairs and a bunch of skulls. The cabinet of curiosity is a decor, and each case of it is a decor inside the decor, where small characters play small sketches.”
One of Urruty’s most intriguing cabinets of curiosity is “Wonders,” an incredibly detailed charcoal and graphite drawing on paper with a nod to Raphael. It was originally made for the 2019 Dorothy Circus group show Mother & Child.
“It was obviously a kind of Madonna, holding a little boy, and surrounded by cute and creepy objects,” she says.
Both the mom and her son wear animal nose masks, a feature that turns up fairly often in Urruty’s work. Behind them, tiny vignettes play out in the meticulously organized clutter of the cabinet. A doll with a grown-up figure and Cabbage Patch Kid face poses as someone, or something, seemingly crawls out of the shelf from behind her. A chalk-style drawing of a house peeks out from behind a stack of dice, next to a skull with long, straight hair. You could spend hours staring at “Wonders,” trying to decipher all the strange scenarios within it. “I wanted to describe a nuanced approach of maternity, and confronting cuteness and fear was my way to do it,” Urruty explains.
“THE GHOST HAS BEEN MY COMPANION SINCE YEARS NOW, AS IT COULDN’T FIND A WAY TO LEAVE THE STAGE. AS A MODEL, IT WAS THE CREEPIEST AND YET MOST ACADEMICAL ONE. A REFERENCE TO RENAISSANCE DRAPES AND TO ALL MY BELOVED GHOULISH FIGURES.”
“I even remember I had to start “Wonders” again as I wasn’t happy with the first version!” Urruty recalls. In the end, it didn’t just make it into the group show, but became the cover of the artist’s most recent monograph, Made in the Dark.
Every few years, usually when she has a solo show in Paris, Urruty publishes a monograph, as a way for people to buy something during the exhibition, even if an original drawing is beyond their budget. “Each one of them is pretty different,” she says, adding that the project is often inspired by the publisher of the book. For Made in the Dark—her sixth tome—Urruty worked with Cernunnos, who was including the book as part of an existing series alongside titles from the likes of Mark Ryden, Ron English, Marion Peck, Mu Pan, Christian Rex Van Minnen, and others.
“It had to be a big book, a kind of retrospective of my fifteen years of activity,” Urruty explains. “So I decided to organize it in a reverse chronological way, sent them more than two hundred pictures and asked different people to write texts about my drawings and about when I met them. It was a huge work, and I’m really happy about it.” There were a few surprises while putting together the book. Artist Stephane Blanquet, with whom Urruty has collaborated, wrote a poem for her. Philippe Katerine, the famed French singer, responded quickly. “And it really had a personal meaning for me, as I started my public activity by doing body painting for him during some gig and media appearance,” Urruty notes.
The Model—Urruty’s solo show at Arts Factory in Paris—coincided with the release of the monograph, she put together a collection of more than fifty drawings, with two dating back to 2019 and most produced between 2020 and 2023.
“Concerning the themes, it depended on my mood,” she says of the show. “The thing is that I wanted to produce portraits, with more precision than I used to do, so I can make shiny fabrics, satin, and metal appear.”
A large graphite and charcoal piece bears the same title as the show. In it, two models pose seated with luxurious fabrics draped over them. “For me, the ideal model is covered with a sheet,” says Urruty. “The ghost has been my companion for years now, as it couldn’t find a way to leave the stage. As a model, it was the creepiest and yet most academical one. A reference to Renaissance drapes and to all my beloved ghoulish figures.” The covered models seem oblivious to the mess of toys and pottery surrounding them, let alone the severed head that sits on a table beneath a disco ball.
THAT’S STILL THE ONLY FANCY THING I ALLOW ME IN THIS MONOCHROMATIC PATH, A LITTLE RAINBOW.”
Urruty’s characters frequently turn up dressed for a masquerade ball or night of trick-or-treating. “Masks and costumes have always been linked to my work,” she says.
She explains by quoting Shakespeare: “All the world’s a stage.” So the costumes became a natural fit for the artist who admittedly gravitates towards Carnival and Halloween and prefers to wander through costume shops. “From terrifying zombie masks to shiny plastic ornaments, everything’s here,” she says. “To me it’s an implacable allegory of our own condition, pretending to be distinguished with miserable objects and finally facing our deepest fears.”
Her penchant for costumes even comes through in Urruty’s illustration for the cover of the French translation of Grace Krilanovich’s novel The Orange Eats Creeps (Ce qui vit la nuit in French). “Even though I’m ashamed of it, I must admit that I didn’t have time to read Grace’s book yet,” she says. “So I discussed a lot with the publishers who asked for this commission.” Urruty had some directions and brought in references to the story, like the junk food and a nod to 7-Eleven. “Concerning the character, actually—that’s what they told me, there is no precise description of people in the novel. So we decided to have a kind of grungy girl, with a dress like Courtney Love’s one, with weird vampire teeth,” she says. “I also wanted to include this drawing as part of a new series of small pieces, with rough kids’ drawings of it, so it really made sense for me and I was able to present it during my show.”
Urruty’s penchant for costumes turn up in her cabinets of curiosity as well, like in “Never Again,” where monstrous faces lurk between stacks of bricks, upon which an amalgamation of items are displayed. In the foreground, a young boy and girl, both partially masked, stand with a small, burning house between them.
“It tells a pretty sad story of a toxic relationship,” Urruty explains of the drawing that holds personal significance to her. “Each detail refers to an anecdote, a discomfort, a lie. These dozens of bricks were the reflection of the walls that surrounded me at that time,” she says. “Even though each drawing is cathartic in a way, conceiving and finishing this one has been a deep relief.”
In explaining her process, Urruty notes that she does some planning beforehand. “As I work with charcoal pencils, I can’t really erase things once they’re on my sheet of paper,” says Urruty. “So I usually have to know where I go before I start.”
I WANTED TO DESCRIBE A NUANCED APPROACH OF MATERNITY, AND CONFRONTING CUTENESS AND FEAR WAS MY WAY TO DO IT…”
“Some details are added a bit later, when I have the feeling that the drawing’s not full enough. But I tried to fight a bit against that feeling, particularly when I conceived drawings during the COVID lockdown,” she adds. “When everybody was looking for sense, I was looking for air. That’s why I began to draw mountains, and big landscapes, and to produce less cluttered pictures.”
You can see this shift in pieces like “Sunset” and “Volcano,” where Urruty incorporates images that look like photographs within the larger piece. In the former, a palm tree beach scene hangs against a beaded curtain, like a memento from a recent vacation. In the latter, a large picture of a volcanic eruption looms behind the characters at the forefront of the drawing.
Urruty’s turn towards drawings that are less packed with stuff is on display in “Poodles,” which was made in early 2023 and appeared in Dream State, a group show at StolenSpace in London. In it, a figure with a human body and canine head sits cross-legged on a chair, draped in a blanket and holding a much smaller poodle.
“At that time, it was pretty cold in Paris, and I used to spend all my time covered with blankets and duvets,” says Urruty. “I have a bad habit, inherited from my childhood: I work on my bed. So blankets are in some way my natural environment. I already drew a duvet on another drawing, and it did excite me as another kind of drape to master, with more volume and unexpected pleats.”
Urruty had her boyfriend pose for her under a piece of fabric, which is how the piece began to take shape. She describes the piece as a bit of a tribute to the French painter Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, “but with a duvet and a poodle mask.”
With Dream State as a theme and an almost symmetrical composition, Urruty added a rare touch of color with a red, yellow and blue rainbow arching between the two columns in the drawing. It’s been over a decade since she has made full-color drawings, but Urruty occasionally allows for the jolt of a rainbow. “That’s still the only fancy thing I allow myself in this monochromatic path,” she says. “… a little rainbow.”*
Below photo of the artist by TomTom Photography, courtesy of the artist.
This article is featured in Hi-Fructose Issue 68, which is available here in luxurious print.
Source involved in this report: Read Original Article
