Chloé Quenum, Le Sceau de Salomon. 2018. Image courtesy of the artist.
Le Sceau de Salomon is an exhibition of new works by French artist Chloé Quenum, developed during her residency with Te Whare Hēra.
Le Sceau de Salomon is an installation with videos and different media collected during Quenum’s 6 month residency in Aotearoa New Zealand. The French exhibition title “Le Sceau de Salomon” has two meanings: it is both the name of a forest flower, and a legend related to King Solomon.
The exhibition brings together content from Aotearoa New Zealand, Benin, and Paris in a dreamy landscape. The artist builds connections between different times and places as she explains “everything is always linked to something else.”
Chloe Quenum describes her residency in Aotearoa New Zealand as a time of “being upside down”. Here in Aotearoa New Zealand, on the other side of the world from Quenum’s home in Paris, things have changed for the artist including the way she sees things and understands them to be. During her residency with Te Whare Hēra, Chloé has travelled into and out of Aotearoa New Zealand, and her works reflect a certain type of dream-state experienced when travelling through different time zones: reality and imagination run into and out of each other seamlessly.
Le Sceau de Salomon opens 4 July at The Engine Room, Massey University, and is open to the public 16 July – 3 August. Visit The Engine Room website.
Click here to download the press release: le-sceau-de-salomon-press-release
