the way a real prophet does, often as in a dream, without being conscious about it.
He thinks he unveils the deepest stirrings of his soul,
but in fact, time's mind reveals itself through his mouth,
and this mind exists, because it moves us.
Carl Gustav JUNG
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Sophie Cauvin unequivocally belongs to a narrative that exploits matter.
A faded sign stamps the canvas made rough through the build up of layers.
A flaked triangle palpitates in the centre of an aura of ash and sand.
Sloping writing, explosing bright circles, and the grey strip with its tattoo of an illusive ladder
are just three of symbolic registers.
Navigating its way through the slight tension is the ship of the dead dreaming of new suns.
The young artist, Sophie Cauvin, was born into a family of musicians.
And for a long time she thought only of embracing the strictness of arpeggios
and the beat of rhythmic melodies.
However she had no desire to become a performer.
She was more interested in creating.
Which is why she decided to go in for the plastic arts
and enrolled at the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Brussels
where she graduated in fine art and sculpture.
Yet her teachers had little influence on her.
Very early on she adopted an original form of expression.
She broke moorings to undertake her own personal search.
Cauvin has a passion for literature and philosophy, and a fascination with alchemy.
She enjoys progressing from one transmutation to the next.
She aspires to the quasi-impossible perfection
personified by the quest for the Philosopher's Stone.
While Sophie Cauvin admits to having a certain a certain affinity with Antoni Tàpies,
she also assumes the spatial structuring of an artist like Giotto.
However, she already displays a great degree of maturity
and an irrefutable uniqueness that goes from strength to strength.
She is very much enthralled by ancient archaeology
as well as by the influence of civilizations such as Egypt, China and Japan.
To her very crucible of creation is the product of an intellectual vision drained of romantic feelings.
Her work is imbued with a still, serene meditation.
Wisdom is sought in the compost of past generations, in the sphere of influence of a collective memory.
The artist structures essential symbols without any kind of demonstrative approach:
astral circle, magic square, evocation of the heavens and earth, of full and empty, of water and fire.
Cauvin's compositions are always spare,
hinting at the presence of an unknown mystery in what are kinds of thin bas-reliefs.
Moreover, her palette is not composed of vibrant reds and strident blues.
On the contrary, everything follows the rhythm of progressively modulated grey, white, beige and Naples yellow
with gradual brightening and darkening.
While writing is present in Sophie Cauvin's work, it avoids the gratuitous.
The blurred, barely legible script is in fact firmly anchored to the innate vitality of the work.
It is in perfect harmony with the pictorial environment.
Thus a piece by the poet Michaux reinforces the underlying idea of the painting and thereby necessarily complements it.
The gaze can now decipher at leisure, as Sophie Cauvin is offering us new interpretations.
Jo DUSTIN, 9/00