Manuèle Bernardi

Astre II

2021

After studying at the Académie Roederer and the Beaux-Arts in Paris (1983), Manuèle Bernardi became a decorator and costume designer. In 1990 Manuèle Bernardi chose to devote herself to more personal work through different mediums: drawing, then sculpture. Since 2014, she has created her first installations under plexiglass, and in 2021 she presents her first works embroidered on paper. All the works are the expression of one and the same quest. Manuèle Bernadi explores the link, the relationship to the other. It is an optimistic and positive message that is deli- vered by the artist. In her representation of women, her sculptures, terracotta or bronzes, Callipyges, with wide feet firmly anchored in reality, unconditionally turn to the other. She seeks to make perceptible the invisible emotion of two beings who connect, the alchemy of a group moving towards a common destination. In her installations, whose frail material is consolidated by invisible threads, Manuèle studies flora and fauna as a source of inspiration for a common life where the link forms a bulwark. The sculpture-volumes, real biotopes, set themselves up as a protective shield for a materialistic everyday life. If Manuèle Bernardi’s installations have a high poetic density, they conceal in their heart a disturbing fragility. Tied to nylon threads, these little things wobble happily on themselves, oblivious to their meaning. Individually they are the traces of a past life, of manslaughter, together they reform a thrilling ecosystem that seeks to protect its center. A new constellation around a visible or hidden star that breathes new life into it. The allegory does not end there, Manuèle protects her installations with a sheet of transparent plexiglass which is reminiscent of the ozone layer.