Les vagabondes

Exhibition in the rooms of the Neuer Kunstverein.
Ratisbon, 14.04.2016

The artist arrived in Ratisbon a few days ago with friends and relatives, and together they literally took over the space of the Kunstverein to install her works.

Nicole Morello started her artist-career in France then in Germany by making books and 35 years later she still has been making books.

The exhibited works look all very different; nevertheless they are all connected to each other and represent successive steps of one development.

First step: Nicole made pop-up books, in a very sophisticated way, in which each motif was filigreed cut out, page after page. Typical for this period is the astonishing, green book printed on the poster and the invitation.

While doing those books, the artist did not throw away the leftovers, but treasured them for a later use. One never knows.

The maze made of big sheets of translucent paper hanging like a “book to walk through” in the side room has been colourfully painted with the leftovers converted into stencils. That’s the second step.

Then as long as the stencils were still wet with colour, the artist converted them into stamps to realize very delicate almost vanishing paper works like the ones hanging in the middle of the main room. That’s the third step.

The stamps, thickened by layers of colours are then organized in showcases for the series of 30 butterflies’ boxes. Next step.

One could almost talk of an “economically sustainable” way of making art.

Les vagabondes. The title of the exhibition refers to plants which are roaming the world under the gardener’s nose; always to be seen where they are not expected….. so the artist’s works in this exhibition.

Reiner R. Schmidt