ART CITIES: Paris-Delphine Dénéréaz & Bridget Low

With the exhibition “Bells, Spells & Love Chapels”, Chapelle XIV brings its materials-themed trilogy to a dazzling close. Artist Delphine Dénéréaz, joined by Bridget Low, transforms the space into a textile dreamworld—an ode to thread, craft, and radical tenderness. This isn’t just an exhibition; it’s an enchanted playground where memory, love, and imagination are spun into vivid, joyful rebellion.

By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Chapelle XIV Archive

This third and final installment in Chapelle XIV’s exploration of materiality is devoted to thread—but not as you know it. “Bells, Spells & Love Chapels” hands full creative freedom to Delphine Dénéréaz, who answers with an immersive, kaleidoscopic installation that unravels expectations. A riot of color, texture, and symbolism, the show is both intimate and exuberant—a tapestry of affection, folklore, and feminist resistance. At its center stands a fantastical cottage, a sculptural hut reminiscent of Hansel and Gretel’s fairytale home. Clad in shimmering surfaces and saturated hues, it calls out like a siren song. A hidden entrance reveals its secrets: walls lined with textile works devoted to the theme of love. Not love as cliché, but as complexity—physical, sacred, messy, tender, queer, ancient, and contemporary. A graduate of La Cambre (Brussels) in Textile Design, Delphine Dénéréaz lives and works in Villedieu (Vaucluse) and is a resident at Atelier Vé in Marseille. She is also co-founder of the Monstera collective, alongside Bridget Low, Léna Gayaud, and Opale Mirman. Raised in a rural southern landscape, Dénéréaz draws from a lineage of domestic crafts and vernacular traditions. Central to her practice is the medieval technique of lirette, a form of rag-rug weaving using scraps of used fabric—bedsheets, t-shirts, old garments. Transferred onto wooden and metal structures, this technique breaks free from the frame, shifting tapestry from decorative wall object to sculptural, performative force. Her works channel ancestral knowledge, feminine labor, and everyday rituals, bringing what is often dismissed as “craft” or “folk” into direct dialogue with late capitalist symbols. She merges the sacred with the synthetic, weaving stories that move from votive offerings to Tinder swipes, from soap opera melodrama to childhood relics. Joining the exhibition is Bridget Low, artist and co-director of Atelier Vé. Born in 1995 and educated at the Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts (Richmond, USA), Low brings a distinctly American pop sensibility to the show. Her tapestry compositions are playful yet pointed—inhabited by hybrid feminine figures, vivid palettes, and cartoonish dreamscapes. Her use of the witch as a recurring symbol is deliberate: a figure of rebellion, knowledge, and non-conformity. Through her lens, craft becomes political—an act of reclamation and joy. Together, Dénéréaz and Low transform Chapelle XIV into a site of emotional resonance. Their joint universe is theatrical yet sincere—a place where glitter meets ritual, and where domestic textures hold radical potential. The exhibition doesn’t just show work; it invites feeling. Visitors are encouraged to wander, linger, touch (with care), and maybe even fall in love—again or for the first time. “Bells, Spells & Love Chapels” is a sanctuary of softness, pleasure, and connection. A chapel reimagined. A bedroom re-enchanted. A love letter written in thread.

Photo: Delphine Dénéréaz, La Chaumière, 2025, Weaving of reclaimed linens, cotton, warps on grid, Variable dimensions, © Delphine Dénéréaz, Courtesy the artist and Chapelle XIV

Info: Chapelle XIV, 14 Boulevard de la Chapelle (3rd courtyard on the right), Paris, France, Duration: 5/6-26/7/2025, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 11:00-19:00, www.chapelle14.com/