“And your body can come, beating like a heart”

Espace Cosme - 9th - 26th of February 2023
curated by Victoria Gour and Noa Longhurst-Deshaulle

The heart is a liquid organ, a tactile surface that retains the imprint of experience. This close relationship between the body memory and the experiences of the heart inspires painter Noura Djurić for her exhibition “And your body can come, beating like a heart”.

It's a theater of characters that come to life in these stagings composed by the artist, ephemeral moments perpetuated in the eternity of painting. Capturing these intimate moments is a way of exploring the nature of human relationships. Far from erecting a fixed definition, Noura Djurić's canvases immerse us in moments of tenderness as much as they initiate a reflection on the need for it. As if to materialize the mysterious aura of the ties that bind us, symbols and signs mingle and hide in layers of paint, within works that oscillate between figuration, symbolism and abstraction. If a common thread seems to unite the canvases, like different facets of the same story, a fundamental tension lies within. The heart beats and the body struggles, struggling through the fluctuations of self-love and the love of others. A brutal hand-to-hand combat, between embrace and battle. Face to face with oneself. The body sinks. The heart ripped out.

Steeped in feminism and decolonizing thought, Noura Djurić's painting is profoundly political. Her portraiture stands up against the norms that have framed the representation of bodies and individualities in the history of art. The painter makes flesh waltz, naked or in costume. A true storyteller, she explores the complexity of human feelings and offers a tender treatment of figures, emblems of love, solitude or resilience. Faced with these mirrors of our own experience, we tune out the noise of the world for a while to listen to the heartbeat of the other.

Text by Noa Longhurst-Deshaulle