Salomé Chatriot 'We Empty Ourselves and Accelerate the Hatching'

SALOMÈ CHATRIOT
We Empty Ourselves and Accelerate the Hatching

24. März – 13. Mai 2023
Wed – Fri, 3 – 6 pm

Gallery Weekend Opening times
28. – 30.3. 2023
Fri – Sun 12 – 6 pm

Act 1 
With lips pursed, inhale deeply, allow crisp air to fill your lungs. Exhale slowly and steadily, feel how your body is working smoothly and seamlessly, as if you were a well-oiled machine. In this way, the act of breathing becomes a powerful tool for healing and transformation.
Such is the approach of artist Salomé Chatriot, at her first solo exhibition in Berlin at OFFICE IMPART 'We empty ourselves and accelerate the hatching' reflects a deep reverence for the interconnectedness of all living beings and their environments. Through a process that emphasizes breath, fluid circulation, and alchemical transmutation, Chatriot seeks to create a symbiotic relationship between organic and electronic materials, blurring the lines between the natural and the artificial.
For Chatriot, the fusion of organic, digital, virtual, designed, and natural materials is essential to her artistic process. Through meticulous experimentation and discipline, she seeks to create hybrid entities that draw the contours of a future era of art. Her work is a testament to the belief that material and virtual creations can coexist and be in a harmonious exchange,
In Chatriot's works, machines take on the most human actions: reproducing, nourishing, and breathing as a form of creating new life through the transfer of organic materials, respiration, fluid circulation.


Entr'acte 
As the curtains draw back, a warm light floods the stage and unveils a scene of palpable sensuality. In this moment, every element converges to create a tense atmosphere that heightens awareness of the surroundings. A fleeting glimpse into the eyes of a neighbor sparks a deep-seated anticipation that has been longed for. One feels exposed yet seen. Such a sensation is akin to the erotic experience—a phenomenon that the distinguished educator and poet, Audre Lorde, expounds upon in her essay „Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power“. Lorde identifies the erotic as a profound source of feminine potency, inherent to the spiritual realm of female existence. This power, beyond the narrow scope of sexual objectification depicted in pornography, is a deeply fulfilling state that arises from the joy and satisfaction of being a woman.
The works of Chatriot bear witness to this subtle yet potent landscape of the erotic. From the delicately painted enamel images of intimate body parts to the sweeping vistas of landscapes, and to the mesmerizing 3D visualizations of an ever-expanding machine, Chatriot's art explores the significance of the female form in relation to technology. With an innate ability to reveal the feminine tendencies inherent in the machine itself, Chatriot's creations redefine our understanding of femininity and its relationship to the world of tech industry.

Act 2
At the surface of her upper body, Chatriot adorns herself with white latex gloves, meticulously placing an egg-like objet d'art which will later transform into exquisite wall sculptures. Through her creative endeavors, she has forged a novel raw material — galathite — birthed from the union of calcium-stabilized curdled milk. This unique organism serves as a poignant reminder that machines, too, can embody the same fertile, erotic, and sensual facets of femininity.
Chatriot's artistic oeuvre ventures far beyond the confines of the digital realm. Her art soars beyond mere technological boundaries. Rather, her creative endeavors manifest as deeply physical and visceral, traversing beyond codes or a physical medium to bridge the chasm between the human form and the machine. Chatriot ruptures hackneyed stereotypes of technological iciness, shattering all barriers to engender an unbreakable kinship between humanity and machinery, creating a blood bond that transcends all.

Text: Shelly Reich