The solo exhibition of the artist - Dans la fumée (In the smoke) - unveils an intricate body of work. Géraldine Tobe’s work’s genesis stands in her life journey - from the death of her older sister, whom she senses to be the reincarnation, to the spiritual duality in which she grew up: between traditional Congolese beliefs and catholicism. Her practice grows from these multiple experiences, giving birth to the stories happening in her canvases.
In her quest for freedom, Géraldine Tobe has set fire to her canvases.
As a young artist, painting did not suit her anymore. How could she make pictures without acrylic or oil paint and break up with the predominant artistic conventions? While Congolese sculptor Freddy Tsimba shifted from traditional mediums to compose with meaningful objects, Tobe aspired to the same emancipation.
A new path arose from the fire that was devouring her works. Destruction led her to reconstruction. And in the smoke, her heart started to talk.
Since then, smoke has accompanied her creative power. Airy shapes with mastered outlines and precise details merge from the mesmerizing dance of the flame of her oil lamp to land on the virgin canvas.
The solo exhibition of the artist - Dans la fumée (In the smoke) - unveils an intricate body of work. Géraldine Tobe’s work’s genesis stands in her life journey - from the death of her older sister, whom she senses to be the reincarnation, to the spiritual duality in which she grew up: between traditional Congolese beliefs and catholicism. Her practice grows from these multiple experiences, giving birth to the stories happening in her canvases. In this, Géraldine Tobe's art is akin to Socrates' maieutics - the art of delivering minds. In a form of reminiscence, the smoke draws on her questions and suffering to exhume her truth.
On the walls, weightless bodies evoke the fragility of human life (Vanité de vanité, 2022). “We will all end up flying away one day” she says. Through the image of this evanescent flesh, Tobe delivers a personal interpretation of vanitas. With these beings who dissipate in volutes, the artist says: "You will continue to live by the memories that we will keep of you". The memory of past actions outlives the carnal envelope.
The skin displays a dense network of symbols. The head of an eagle tirelessly comes back, staring at the viewer, sometimes joined by masks and other signs. These recurring drawings form scarifications. In ancestral society, they were the teachings that followed humans throughout their lives. They also represented the divine. Through them, Tobe explores the mechanisms of transmission between generations and connects the living to the spirit of the ancestors.
An aura of mystery surrounds Tobe’s paintings, the woman who creates to heal, the woman for whom art has the miraculous virtue of exorcising ills. Her works invite dialogue and exchange. Once born, they escape her to belong to the others. And amid these celestial figures guided by smoke, they find themselves listening to their heart speak.
