The silence of time 

The exhibition Épure by the French artist Julia Dupont, is composed of 8 photographers on the former convent of the Holy Cross in the mountain of Sintra. The artist has captured the spirit of the place, and her work carries within it the concept of time. The photographs do not remain prisoners of their dimension; on the contrary, they are a clear expansion of the space where the work meets time. Where the stripping of Saint François d'As- sise, peace, spirituality and serenity are sensitively felt. Quoting the artist: "I tried to highlight certain features of the conception that erected this space, and finally composed a punctual evo- cation of my journey inside it. My immersion also proceeded from a journey through time, through the stories about its history and the lives it has sheltered. » 

What Julia Dupont photographs are not the natural elements, her intention is to reach the principle of creation, the idea of emptiness, silence, the past. To exalt the importance of the internal principle and not the constant form. "Leaving after oneself the perfect interval as a unique sound vibrating in the air. To be reborn afterwards, to keep the strange memory of the interval, without knowing how to mix it with life. Carrying forever the little empty spot - dazzled and virgin, too fleeting to reveal itself" (Clarice Lispector, in Près du coeur sauvage). Nature is aesthetic in so far as it provides us with states of spiritual pleasure, in our sense more authentic than naive. 

This series of photographs is like a poem, and its narrative tells the story of the remains, the memories that come to meet her, left by other lives. It is based on movement and free associations between the captured fragments. "When, later on, we have to mention the relationship between a new poetic image and an archetype lying dormant in the depths of the unknown, we must make it clear that this relationship is not, strictly speaking, causal. The poetic image is not subject to a push. It is not the echo of a past. It is rather the opposite: through the brilliance of an image, the distant past resounds with echoes and one can hardly see how deep these echoes will echo back and fade away. In its novelty, in its activity, the poetic image has its own being, its own dynamism. "(Gaston Bachelard, in La Poétique de l'espace). 

The light represented here accentuates the spirituality still visible in these interiors. Preserving the elements that make up this primitive architectural landscape that has not yet been destroyed, the stones, cork, plants, mosses, build an intimate face torn by abandonment. 

Sofia Marçal 

Curator of the exhibition at the National Museum of Natural History and Science in Lisbon, Portugal  July 2019

(artist's translation) 

From Tuesday 25 February 2020 until 21 March 2020.

Vernissage on Tuesday, January 25 from 6:00 pm to 9:00 pm.

Galerie du Haut-Pavé - 3 Quai de Montebello, 75005 Paris, metro: Saint Michel, Maubert - Mutualité. Open Tuesday to Friday from 2:30 to 6:30 pm, until 7 pm on Saturdays. With the support of contemporary documentary photography from the National Centre for Visual Arts and the Institut Camões - Centre