Carte Blanche

For the first edition of the Rubis Mécénat Prize in partnership with Beaux-Arts de Paris, artist Dhewadi Hadjab presented a diptych of paintings designed for the church of Saint-Eustache, with curatorial support from Gaël Charbau.

The two paintings, measuring over three meters in height, which the artist created for Saint-Eustache Church, depict two inverted female bodies with their heads downwards. Their arms are resting on the ground and their feet are trying to balance an unsteady prie-dieu. Photography and pictorial practice are at the core of Dhewadi Hadjab work, and all of the artist’s paintings begin with photographs of models whom he places in very awkward positions. Then, as he extremely meticulously creates the painted work, he accentuates every single detail so that the painting is not a copy of a moment, but its own world. Here, the artist leaves the interpretation open and invites us to reflect on the transformation and the transfiguration of the body. The prie-Dieu, a metaphor for support points in dance, offers the body the opportunity to aspire to a higher language, the language of the soul, and in his own way, Dhewadi restores meaning to this object.