Fragiles: Gisèle Bonin

Presented at MABE Gallery, Fragiles brings together the work of Gisèle Bonin, whose practice has explored the notions of fragmentation, memory, and intimacy torn apart for over ten years. Drawing (sanguine, graphite, charcoal), photography, and installation come together in an exploration of simple, understated materials, chosen not for their own sake, but to give form to what words cannot express.

For many years, the artist chose not to situate her work, favouring the anonymity of her subjects over any form of narrative. For the first time, she places it within the context from which it emerged: her volunteer work with REDA, a support network for asylum seekers in Angers.

What her pencil seeks is not likeness, but what lies beyond the body without ever fully revealing itself: exile, waiting, displacement, everything that resists being put into words, and that the fragment alone can evoke. Hands clasped in other hands. A foot carrying the weight of an entire journey. Gazes enlarged until they become landscapes.

Whether monumental in scale or reduced to the size of a postage stamp, these fragments are not intended simply to represent. Instead, the artist uses them to make space: space for memory, for untold stories, for lives marked by rupture. Through the texture of the paper and the deliberate slowness of her gesture, she creates a language in which each fragment of the body becomes a site of presence, both restrained and deeply moving. A fragility that endures; a presence that asserts itself through what remains unseen.

Fragiles invites us to look closely at what we so often prefer not to see, and to discover, against all expectations, a source of strength within it.

A graduate of the École des Beaux-Arts d’Angers, Gisèle Bonin has exhibited at the Musée des Beaux-Arts d’Angers and the Musée Jules Desbois. Her work is held in several public collections, including those of the City of Gentilly and the Aponia Art Centre.