From February 9 to 16 2024, Mouvements Modernes is pleased to invite the painter and author Aurélie Galois to its showroom at the Palais Royal.

Originally the editor-in-chief of several magazines and an independent author, as she trained in traditional painting, engraving, and drawing techniques, she began painting portraits of those she interviewed, as well as real or imaginary landscapes. For the past 20 years, her art has been a fusion of painting and writing, whether it's her own words or those of others. Curator and art critic Sinziana Ravini describes her work as follows: "Aurélie Galois' enigmatic, baroque, and often surreal paintings have always explored the dark areas of the human psyche, through strange subjects and phan- tasmagorical scenes where sensuality and ecstasy, sleep, or self-forgetfulness per- meate the subjects." Galois herself explains the focus of her work: "I would say that human experience guides the three main genres I explore, namely portraiture, dream scenes, and eroticism."

In this month dedicated to Cupid, it is the latter theme that will be discreetly presented at Mouvements Modernes.
Once again, painting and literature intertwine. The "Bijoux Indiscrets“ (Indiscreet Jewels) are a nod to the anonymously published 1748 work by Diderot, where a prince makes women's jewels speak through their skirts, thanks to a ring given by a genie. "Painting and eroticism go hand in hand," she writes in the preface of her book of the same title, where she invited about twenty famous or unknown authors to illustrate with their words one of her miniature oil paintings with gold or silver leaf. She continues, "Flesh is the reason oil painting was invented," quoting de Kooning, "and I wouldn't argue with that."

A first edition was presented in Boston and then in Paris. For this second presentation in Paris, entirely new precious and licentious scenes are still modestly concealed in carefully selected cases.
For this occasion, Aurélie has collaborated with Master Perfumer Dominique Ropion, with whom she has worked before, to create an olfactory illustration of her "Bijoux Indiscrets." After interpreting words, here is an exclusive olfactory interpretation of the eroticism that the artist and perfumer have composed together, contrary to the expected heady boudoir atmospheres.

Before we meet again in February, let us give the floor to Levinas, the philosopher leaning into relationships: "Eros is communion with the hidden."