PHOTO:Valérie Belin-China Girls

Left: Valérie Belin, Bohemian-Glass-Cup, Pigment print, 173 x 130 cm, Edition of 6 + 2 AP, © Valérie Belin, Courtesy the artist and Galerie Nathalie Obadia. Right: Valérie Belin, Chinese-Coral-Red, Pigment print, 173 x 130 cm, Edition of 6 + 2 AP, © Valérie Belin, Courtesy the artist and Galerie Nathalie ObadiaInitially influenced by various minimalist and conceptual tendencies, Valérie Belin became interested in the photographic medium in its own right; this is at once the subject of her work and her way of reflecting and creating. Light, matter and the “body” of things and beings in general, as well as their transformations and representations, constitute the terrain of her experiments and the world of her artistic ideas. Her work is articulated in photographic series, each one produced within the framework of a specific project.

By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Galerie Nathalie Obadia Archive

Pushing the boundaries of conventional, realist photography, Valérie Belin exploits the possibilities of digital manipulation, creating work that hovers between reality and illusion. Valérie Belin in her solo exhibition “China Girls” presents a new series of seven photographs at Galerie Nathalie Obadia in Brussels In the line of her series “Super Models” (2015), “All Star” (2016), and “Painted Ladies” (2017), this new series of photographs, realized in 2018, depicts young women posing “like actresses incarnating imaginary characters”. The title is directly borrowed from the vocabulary of the motion picture industry from the 1950s. Originally, a “China Girl” designated an anonymous actress who held the cameraman’s grayscale, used to calibrate the opening image in the reel leader, when processing the film. By extension, “China Girl” became the generic term to identify this first image. This secondary role assigned to actresses gave rise to the stereotypical pose that Valérie Belin subtly reinterprets in her portraits, which depict three young women who are all strangely similar to the point that it is hard to tell them apart in the photographs that make up the series. Like contemporary geishas, they embody, according to the artist, “the role of a beautiful captive, inhabiting a wonderful environment”. Elegantly dressed, they kneel in the middle of a décor that is dense with motifs and knickknacks (oddities, fake antiquities, vases and bowls filled with flowers and fruit, etc.). The types of porcelain she uses (otherwise known as china) were the inspiration for each of the titles. The phantasmagorical atmosphere that Valérie Belin’s works exude fits in with the exuberance of their setting, saturated with details, similarly to baroque still-lifes. The comparison was already true for her series “Still Life” (2014), which, in its own way, evoked Dutch Golden Age painting in terms of the extreme density of images. It reaches its climax here, in the complex backdrops made up of excerpts of American comic strips and other elements, floral for example. By confronting backgrounds and abundant details in her compositions, Valérie Belin accentuates the general dramaturgy of the series, and progressively leads the spectator toward an unfamiliar sense of unease. The mysterious climate that emanates from each image is reminiscent of Michelangelo Antonioni’s film “Blow-Up” (1960), and in particular of that key sequence in the movie where blowing up a photograph reveals, in the background, the traces of a murder, leaving us to wonder if it did actually occur.

Info: Galerie Nathalie Obadia, 8 rue Charles Decoster, Brussels, Duration: 15/11-22/12/18, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 11:00-19:00, www.nathalieobadia.com

Valérie Belin, Opaline Crystal Flask, Pigment print, 173 x 130 cm, Edition of 6 + 2 AP, © Valérie Belin, Courtesy the artist and Galerie Nathalie Obadia
Valérie Belin, Opaline Crystal Flask, Pigment print, 173 x 130 cm, Edition of 6 + 2 AP, © Valérie Belin, Courtesy the artist and Galerie Nathalie Obadia

 

 

Valérie Belin, Openwork Porcelain Cut, Pigment print, 173 x 130 cm, Edition of 6 + 2 AP, © Valérie Belin, Courtesy the artist and Galerie Nathalie Obadia
Valérie Belin, Openwork Porcelain Cut, Pigment print, 173 x 130 cm, Edition of 6 + 2 AP, © Valérie Belin, Courtesy the artist and Galerie Nathalie Obadia

 

 

Valérie Belin, Porcelain Parrot Bird, Pigment print, 173 x 130 cm, Edition of 6 + 2 AP, © Valérie Belin, Courtesy the artist and Galerie Nathalie Obadia
Valérie Belin, Porcelain Parrot Bird, Pigment print, 173 x 130 cm, Edition of 6 + 2 AP, © Valérie Belin, Courtesy the artist and Galerie Nathalie Obadia

 

 

Valérie Belin, Sterling-Silver-Jug, Pigment print, 173 x 130 cm, Edition of 6 + 2 AP, © Valérie Belin, Courtesy the artist and Galerie Nathalie Obadia
Valérie Belin, Sterling Silver Jug, Pigment print, 173 x 130 cm, Edition of 6 + 2 AP, © Valérie Belin, Courtesy the artist and Galerie Nathalie Obadia

 

 

Valérie Belin, Swan Neck Vase, Pigment print, 173 x 130 cm, Edition of 6 + 2 AP, © Valérie Belin, Courtesy the artist and Galerie Nathalie Obadia
Valérie Belin, Swan Neck Vase, Pigment print, 173 x 130 cm, Edition of 6 + 2 AP, © Valérie Belin, Courtesy the artist and Galerie Nathalie Obadia