The Touch of Others
Appy Corner, Roussilion, France, 2022
A site specific commission by The Eye Sees, Arles, France

Press Release:
A series of large panelled glasshouses packed with plants from around the world.  In one corner, vintage treasures from years gone by.  Both brought to life by people seeking out things to bring sensory and visual pleasures to touch their lives.  This is Appy, renowned plant specialists in the Luberon Valley and the scene and inspiration for Passage2: The Touch of Others - four site specific works from the artist Cecilia Bonilla.

The source material for the four new works are cut-outs from second hand gardening and glamour magazines from the 1950s and 60s.  Bonilla pairs images of seductive semi-naked women with images of nature in such a way that the flora and fauna featured take the place of facial and bodily features, shaping the original images into imagined new narratives.  These carefully considered combinations allow for new relationships to form between the subjects, their bodies and their environment.

The title of the exhibition refers to the second-hand nature of the material used as well as to the function of the site - growing and selling plants and vintage goods, goods that may have passed through many hands and touched many lives.  Here, in this nursery, nature, historically regarded as fearsome and wild, is tamed by human touch, carefully prepared to be taken home and nurtured by new owners.  

Bonilla’s work is concerned with the physical quality of printed and mass-produced images, she is interested in how after being touched or handled and often then discarded, these images appear vulnerable to new interpretations. Often re-assembling a single image or combining two in a deceptively simple way she subverts an image’s original meaning through subtle alterations or amendments, reconfiguring, perverting and dismantling its original function.