The French Connection: Swan Scalabre & Carla Talopp

JoAnne Artman Gallery proudly presents The French Connection. Showcasing the work of French artists Swan Scalabre and Carla Talopp, this online exhibition celebrates juxtapositions of scale, abstraction, and figuration within a romanticized aesthetic. Though united by nationality, Scalabre and Talopp are ultimately connected through their shared emphasis on narration and the ability to create a transcendent experience for the observer.

Painting with oil on wood, Swan Scalabre’s small-scale works invite the viewer to get close in order to properly view the intricate details and surface textures. Intimate in subject matter and size, Scalabre’s paintings are placed in wooden shadowbox frames that she affectionately calls “secret boxes.” Poetic and nostalgic, her work communicates a constant desire to escape reality and temporality while illustrating the common plights of women from classic movies, fairytales, and their iconographies. Exuding femininity, memory, and at times pain, with each new composition Scalabre reveals another glimpse into her fantastical world that begs to be visited.

Carla Talopp’s work is a celebration of the power and beauty of life. Reflecting a feminine, lively, sensual nature, her cross-disciplinary practice reveals a plurality of forms. Through drawing, painting and ceramics, she explores environmental concerns and a rapidly changing world while echoing her personal history. Working in large formats, she measures herself against the vastness of her canvases, leading to the liberation of the painted forms and to bright, exacerbated colors that appear luxuriant and surreal. Carla Talopp\’s art transports and moves as boundaries are blurred between the realistic and the fantastical: whether they are teeming jungles or sparkling sea-beds, these painted worlds reflect the artist\’s real understanding of the future of nature and its ecosystems.