Emilie Benard, a naturally eco-resistant artist.
Art and nature have always merged and even merged, in a harmonious relationship of interdependence. The First Cultural Ecology Conference, an event organized by 100 ECS until October 16, 2018, at 100 rue de Charenton, in the 12th district, reminds us of this special alchemy but also, that in the midst of consumer society we no longer talk so much about nature in the broadest sense, but rather about ecology, that is, the need to rethink our way of life, to recycle our practices. It is therefore a question of protecting and reconstructing by reusing instead of throwing away, but also of returning to the starting point, determining the origin of things and understanding that they are part of a timeless cycle, freed from compulsive immediacy. Among all the artists exhibited, a young French-Colombian painter, Emilie Benard Jurado, took hold of this reconstructive desire, with gold leaf, burning ochres, and raw wood. The noblest of nature for the noblest of tasks: to make the incredible beauty of a work of art explode in front of the profane, part of simple wooden crates abandoned in the Place des Vosges.
Through this achievement, Emilie makes us see the world with her eyes: nothing is condemned to be a waste, a waste, everything can be rebuilt or re-built, through a process of resistance. First confined to chemistry, then to psychology, resilience acquires its new letters of nobility through art and a very specific function: to give the latter the power to immerse man in the world, that is, in nature and the environment around him. In the end, the works end up surrounding and contextualizing the artist.
Emilie's work shows an original and brilliant mastery of materials as diverse as gold leaf or raw wood, and of composition, all at the service of aesthetics and brilliant graphics. The themes invite us to travel and become aware of the beauty and fragility of nature; these flowers that come off their petals to give themselves over to natural contemplation or even these two hummingbirds with their colorful plumage are an excellent example. Beyond aesthetics, the artist reveals all her complexity; while creating her palette of forms and colors, she reinvents and recreates existing universes. Her two paintings entitled New 3 and New 5 respectively, personal reinterpretations of the Romans of Thomas Couture's decline, synthesize her creative journey; in her works Emilie performs an artistic recycling "of pre-existing work to finally create a new one, with its own identity".
Other elements, such as paint drips, confirm the artist's desire to respect the original material, proof of human activity prior to her own, and from this, recreate a new original work. More than ever, Emilie Benard Jurado's work illustrates resistance, the ability to reconstruct oneself, to rebuild something, after a traumatic event. On a global scale, human activity can be a traumatic event and art would have the function of making you reflect on the potential danger of your behavior to the environment and on the need to recycle yourself, to be resistant, and this, to reconcile with the environment and ultimately ensure your own survival.