Marais, Paris
Bettina Samson
Diving Divine
SultanaBettina Samson’s solo exhibition Diving Divine presents a series of chamotte stoneware sculptures with hybrid forms, at once organic and mineral. These biomorphic architectures evoke bodies in transformation, pierced by openings and passages that shift the viewer’s gaze continuously. Informed by her own experience of illness and invasive medical procedures, the artist’s practice explores the body as a site of radical continuity between interior and exterior, one of perpetual flux. In the exhibition press release, writer Louise Chennevière emphasizes the intimate and corporeal intensity that characterizes the works: “We feel the pain and desire, we feel the fatigue and rage, we feel the sadness and ardor, all that makes and breaks a body.” The sculptures of Diving Divine engage in a broader dialogue that intersects art history, literature, film, and scientific research. Through these references, Bettina Samson invites a reflection on the porosity of the body, including its relation to other bodies and the ways in which it is shaped and constrained by knowledge systems, social norms, and power structures. Bettina Samson (b. 1978, Paris) lives and works in Paris. Her work has been presented in numerous institutions in France and abroad, including: MAC Marseille (2023); CCCOD Tours (2022); Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (2021); FRAC Normandie Caen (2021); FRAC Île-de-France – Le Château, Rentilly (2020); mudac, Lausanne (2019); IAC Villeurbanne (2019); Le Consortium, Dijon (2017); MAMAC, Nice (2016); MO.CO. Panacée, Montpellier (2014); CAC Santa Fe (2013); 3 bis f, Aix-en-Provence (2009); Kunsthalle Basel (2007); CAPC Bordeaux (2007); Fondation Pernod Ricard (2006); and at the Lyon Biennale (2007).