The Secret Kiss
Limited Edition comission by House of VoltaireSHOP NOW
‘The Secret Kiss’, 2024
Comissioned by House of Voltaire
Glazed porcelain, earthenware, pigments, powder coated brass and cotton, 60cmx50cmx5cm
‘The Secret Kiss’ is an artwork inspired by my fascination with observing the non-human world of the soil. After studying soil biology, I began developing a body of work where the micro-fauna of the soil became central characters in theatrical scenes, playful games, and skewed scientific tables, challenging the limitations of our anthropocentric understanding of the ecosystem.
These two worms symbolize the multitude of worlds that coexist beneath our feet. In the soil, life is thousands of times more active than above ground. Cation exchange, mutualisation, decay, growth—bacteria, fungi, protozoa, and animals continuously eat, reproduce, and die. In this piece, the worms gently dance, kiss, and court under the gaze of the human eye—whether curious or wandering—inviting a deeper empathy for the non-human world on which we are entirely dependent.
Comissioned by House of Voltaire
Glazed porcelain, earthenware, pigments, powder coated brass and cotton, 60cmx50cmx5cm
‘The Secret Kiss’ is an artwork inspired by my fascination with observing the non-human world of the soil. After studying soil biology, I began developing a body of work where the micro-fauna of the soil became central characters in theatrical scenes, playful games, and skewed scientific tables, challenging the limitations of our anthropocentric understanding of the ecosystem.
These two worms symbolize the multitude of worlds that coexist beneath our feet. In the soil, life is thousands of times more active than above ground. Cation exchange, mutualisation, decay, growth—bacteria, fungi, protozoa, and animals continuously eat, reproduce, and die. In this piece, the worms gently dance, kiss, and court under the gaze of the human eye—whether curious or wandering—inviting a deeper empathy for the non-human world on which we are entirely dependent.
‘The Garden of unearthed delights’, 2024
Commissioned by Studio Voltaire, 2024
‘In-House : Juliette Ezaoui & Ana Milenkovic’
16th April - 17th June 2024
Mild steel, Aluminium, Monoprint, oil paint on recycled paper,
1800cm x 110cm
Inspired by ‘The Garden of Earthly Delights’ by Hieronymus Bosch, the drawing depicts the secret life of earthworms. My research has been informed by reading Charles Darwin’s extensive study, ‘The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the Action of Worms with Observations on Their Habits’. In the drawing, we see the worms collecting food, reproducing, and meandering on the surface of the soil. Eyes in the drawing become a recurring pattern, emphasizing the notion of observation and play.
The drawing is a monoprint, aesthetically resembling an architectural blueprint. I used the codes of technical drawings, which I produce in my interior architecture work, to create a technical drawing of a biological system. Taxonomy codes, annotations, dimensions, captions, degrees, weights, and various European science codes are present, flying around the drawing on circular lines. By using the techniques of blueprints, all writing is mirrored, bringing forth the idea of secrecy, coded maps, and games.
My work has also been heavily influenced by Jane Bennett’s essay ‘Vibrant Matter’, which explores the vibrancy between living and non-living things. The movement in my work alludes to this endless circularity of life and decay in the natural world.
Commissioned by Studio Voltaire, 2024
‘In-House : Juliette Ezaoui & Ana Milenkovic’
16th April - 17th June 2024
Mild steel, Aluminium, Monoprint, oil paint on recycled paper,
1800cm x 110cm
Inspired by ‘The Garden of Earthly Delights’ by Hieronymus Bosch, the drawing depicts the secret life of earthworms. My research has been informed by reading Charles Darwin’s extensive study, ‘The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the Action of Worms with Observations on Their Habits’. In the drawing, we see the worms collecting food, reproducing, and meandering on the surface of the soil. Eyes in the drawing become a recurring pattern, emphasizing the notion of observation and play.
The drawing is a monoprint, aesthetically resembling an architectural blueprint. I used the codes of technical drawings, which I produce in my interior architecture work, to create a technical drawing of a biological system. Taxonomy codes, annotations, dimensions, captions, degrees, weights, and various European science codes are present, flying around the drawing on circular lines. By using the techniques of blueprints, all writing is mirrored, bringing forth the idea of secrecy, coded maps, and games.
My work has also been heavily influenced by Jane Bennett’s essay ‘Vibrant Matter’, which explores the vibrancy between living and non-living things. The movement in my work alludes to this endless circularity of life and decay in the natural world.
‘Bingo table’, 2024
Commissioned by Studio Voltaire, 2024
‘In-House : Juliette Ezaoui & Ana Milenkovic’
16th Avril - 17th June 2024
Mild steel table with living and mom living things displayed.
150cm x 100cm
This installation stems from my curiosity about understanding soil structure and its living web. Resembling a laboratory table, the matter is logically placed on shelves that decrease in size throughout the installation. Through the themes
of collecting and the circle of life, the elements laid out move from the living stage, where the terrarium is, to an atomic level at the lower level—a bank of atoms where the bingo takes place. Bingo of atoms, of molecules, of matter – bingo of life!
The table brings the idea of use, echoing the making of life. Using the codes of scientific furniture but in an absurd manner, just like bingo and science together, it leaves the viewer questioning the functionality of the table.
Commissioned by Studio Voltaire, 2024
‘In-House : Juliette Ezaoui & Ana Milenkovic’
16th Avril - 17th June 2024
Mild steel table with living and mom living things displayed.
150cm x 100cm
This installation stems from my curiosity about understanding soil structure and its living web. Resembling a laboratory table, the matter is logically placed on shelves that decrease in size throughout the installation. Through the themes
of collecting and the circle of life, the elements laid out move from the living stage, where the terrarium is, to an atomic level at the lower level—a bank of atoms where the bingo takes place. Bingo of atoms, of molecules, of matter – bingo of life!
The table brings the idea of use, echoing the making of life. Using the codes of scientific furniture but in an absurd manner, just like bingo and science together, it leaves the viewer questioning the functionality of the table.
‘Witch Stone, Seed Pods, Bee Hive’, 2023
Monoprint, oil paint on recycled paper,
90cm x 64cm
I recently completed a series of cartographic drawings. Drawings like ‘Witch Stone, Seed Pods, Bee Hive’ or ‘Spore, Bingo, Evolution’ are tools that help envisage energies we cannot see in the world, though we may feel them: the energy between a person and a tree, or a tree and the microscopic life beneath it.
The objects in the drawings are navigated between, and with this navigation, there is hope of revealing something unseen by a culture of discrete quantifiables that everything is part of an interdependent system. Playing with the codes of quantifiables (grids, maps, and blueprints), the form is also subverted through the printing process. It reverses the image, including the text, whose meaning becomes skewed.
Looking in the small is looking at a different world. Each fragment is an actor within a new imagined system and also, perhaps, an element in a game.
This is a game whose rules are unknown to us. An invitation to unlearn the rules, and thus disinhibit the perceptions we have of our surroundings and how we relate to them. By decom- posing and fragmenting rules, knowledge, and habits, I believe these can be rebuilt to meet contemporary needs to foster a shift in our society paradigm.
Monoprint, oil paint on recycled paper,
90cm x 64cm
I recently completed a series of cartographic drawings. Drawings like ‘Witch Stone, Seed Pods, Bee Hive’ or ‘Spore, Bingo, Evolution’ are tools that help envisage energies we cannot see in the world, though we may feel them: the energy between a person and a tree, or a tree and the microscopic life beneath it.
The objects in the drawings are navigated between, and with this navigation, there is hope of revealing something unseen by a culture of discrete quantifiables that everything is part of an interdependent system. Playing with the codes of quantifiables (grids, maps, and blueprints), the form is also subverted through the printing process. It reverses the image, including the text, whose meaning becomes skewed.
Looking in the small is looking at a different world. Each fragment is an actor within a new imagined system and also, perhaps, an element in a game.
This is a game whose rules are unknown to us. An invitation to unlearn the rules, and thus disinhibit the perceptions we have of our surroundings and how we relate to them. By decom- posing and fragmenting rules, knowledge, and habits, I believe these can be rebuilt to meet contemporary needs to foster a shift in our society paradigm.
‘Spore, Bingo, Evolution’, 2023
Monoprint, oil paint on recycled paper, 90cm x 64cm
‘Radish, Holley Stone, Electron’, 2023
Monoprint, oil paint on recycled paper,
90cm x 64cm
Monoprint, oil paint on recycled paper,
90cm x 64cm
‘Protozoa, Kale, Voltaire’, 2023
Monoprint, oil paint on recycled paper,
90cm x 64cm
Monoprint, oil paint on recycled paper,
90cm x 64cm
‘Potatoes, Clay, Ants’,2023
Monoprint, oil paint on recycled paper,
90cm x 64cm
Monoprint, oil paint on recycled paper,
90cm x 64cm
‘Collection of Sand II’, 2022
Gloves, parsley, tape, borlitti bean, polyethylene, jade, ceramic, green manure, emergency blan- ket, tape mesure, carolina cayenne chilli, thread, bamboo, rhubarbe, sand, painting from Sukey Sleeper, paper clips, nitrogene, clay, micro organism, polystyrene, dwarf french bean purple queen , painting from Phillip Reeves, golden cayenne chilli, etc.
Site specific installation for OrganicLea aniversary festival. OrganicLea is a community food project based in the Lea Valley in north-east London. With a workers’ cooperative at theirs core, they bring people together to take action towards a more just and sustainable society.
This installation is part of a series of work exploring the system of life. The work is buil with elements gleaned in OrganicLea, its surroundings and components from previous artwork. Introducing the circular economy with its transformation process into the process of the artwork.
The work often lies on a table, a place where thoughts flows and where we have dedicated time to think. The table became a sort of map, a mind map, a Sci-fi map, or simply a map of OrganicLea seen through ants’ eyes? Through a cartographic layout, we jump from the mico and the macro. The components are lined up from A to B, inviting to question the idea of no- menclature, definition and boundaries.
The title comes from Italo Calvino’ book, in his short nouvelle ‘Collection of Sand’ he explores the underneath of what is the purpose of a collection, the impulse of collecting objects and what existential question lies in this act.
Gloves, parsley, tape, borlitti bean, polyethylene, jade, ceramic, green manure, emergency blan- ket, tape mesure, carolina cayenne chilli, thread, bamboo, rhubarbe, sand, painting from Sukey Sleeper, paper clips, nitrogene, clay, micro organism, polystyrene, dwarf french bean purple queen , painting from Phillip Reeves, golden cayenne chilli, etc.
Site specific installation for OrganicLea aniversary festival. OrganicLea is a community food project based in the Lea Valley in north-east London. With a workers’ cooperative at theirs core, they bring people together to take action towards a more just and sustainable society.
This installation is part of a series of work exploring the system of life. The work is buil with elements gleaned in OrganicLea, its surroundings and components from previous artwork. Introducing the circular economy with its transformation process into the process of the artwork.
The work often lies on a table, a place where thoughts flows and where we have dedicated time to think. The table became a sort of map, a mind map, a Sci-fi map, or simply a map of OrganicLea seen through ants’ eyes? Through a cartographic layout, we jump from the mico and the macro. The components are lined up from A to B, inviting to question the idea of no- menclature, definition and boundaries.
The title comes from Italo Calvino’ book, in his short nouvelle ‘Collection of Sand’ he explores the underneath of what is the purpose of a collection, the impulse of collecting objects and what existential question lies in this act.
‘Collection of Sand’, 2022
Site specific installation realized during a month long residency at the Cyprus College of Art.
Table, snails, Solandra maxima, scissors, cala- mondin, oil ink, glass of water, 5$, string, eucalyptus fruit, water, brick, video, oxygen, pastel, mirror, liz- zard, pomegranate, pins, charcoal, composite timber, chair, seeds, 120gm paper, oxidised metal, needles, Opunta ficus-indica, olive pips, wire metal, tape, glue, roots.
Site specific installation realized during a month long residency at the Cyprus College of Art.
Table, snails, Solandra maxima, scissors, cala- mondin, oil ink, glass of water, 5$, string, eucalyptus fruit, water, brick, video, oxygen, pastel, mirror, liz- zard, pomegranate, pins, charcoal, composite timber, chair, seeds, 120gm paper, oxidised metal, needles, Opunta ficus-indica, olive pips, wire metal, tape, glue, roots.
‘The table maker II’, 2022
Installation comissioned by John Wyatt-Clarke currator for ‘Room Share’ organized by BLINK Collective at the Safe House in Peckham London.
Table, plant catalogue, string, Kalanchoe beharensis, coir, clay, ruller, charcoal, cissors, oyster shell, pearl, aralia, corals, timber, grape stem, glue, needles, paper, metal wire, sand, ink, wool, tape, ceramic.
This work was presented with an audio piece realized by Lisa Hall & Hannah Kemp-Welch, Sound Map (2017), 14 audio works, 2 minutes each.
Installation comissioned by John Wyatt-Clarke currator for ‘Room Share’ organized by BLINK Collective at the Safe House in Peckham London.
Table, plant catalogue, string, Kalanchoe beharensis, coir, clay, ruller, charcoal, cissors, oyster shell, pearl, aralia, corals, timber, grape stem, glue, needles, paper, metal wire, sand, ink, wool, tape, ceramic.
This work was presented with an audio piece realized by Lisa Hall & Hannah Kemp-Welch, Sound Map (2017), 14 audio works, 2 minutes each.
‘Begonias 2094’, 2021
Installation, Begonias, soil, water, emergency blanquets, charcoal.
Installation shots for Turps final show at Thames Sides Studio Gallery, London.
’2094 Begonias’ is an installation of 27 emergency blankets. On the blankets the entire list of existing species of begonia is written. Written and embedded – seared even – with a process based on charcoal. Alongside the blankets, a large quantity of begonias were planted on the gallery floor. This work questions the gesture of writing in learning, our awareness of botanical species and notions of materiality in a time of fragile virtual information. It make us reflect on where we get flora knowledge nowadays, how all knowledge is transferred and from whom?
Installation, Begonias, soil, water, emergency blanquets, charcoal.
Installation shots for Turps final show at Thames Sides Studio Gallery, London.
’2094 Begonias’ is an installation of 27 emergency blankets. On the blankets the entire list of existing species of begonia is written. Written and embedded – seared even – with a process based on charcoal. Alongside the blankets, a large quantity of begonias were planted on the gallery floor. This work questions the gesture of writing in learning, our awareness of botanical species and notions of materiality in a time of fragile virtual information. It make us reflect on where we get flora knowledge nowadays, how all knowledge is transferred and from whom?
Squating, 2021Installation, variation of ceramics
Idendify, isolate, define, label, title, time, enthropy, movement, merge, compose, isolate, identify, define...
Installation, canevas, ceramic, paper, fabric, needles, paint.
Installation, canevas, ceramic, paper, fabric, needles, paint.
Compositions
Pastel drawings on paper
21 cm x 29,7 cm, recycled paper 110gr
Thoughts about entropy We are what is around us.
First, what are the elements that surround our selves, what are they? That is one of our obsessions ... or is it a necessity for survival?
We constantly strive to define the ‘other’, the external to us, to generate sense and to run from the unknown. The fears, these fears. Defining our environment is to define ourselves. To do so we constantly repeat the following : we look, we divide in order to isolate, then we can locate and therefore define...whatever it is. Eureka, now we are safe, and in response we can anchor ourselves and others.
Time shapes this process. As time passes, it undermines, erodes, dissolves the boundaries of the previously defined elements. And we are back to defining it again, so we look, divide, isolate, locate, define.
One element divided in two gives two elements to divide, n’est-ce pas. The whole process has a hint of pointlessness. Pointless in the time wasted on a recurrent thinking process. But inevitable because to define is to define ourselves and therefore to BE, some enlightenment writers would argue. Maybe keeping boundaries softer may be a key to navigating life with more ease?
Living with entropy.
Pastel drawings on paper
21 cm x 29,7 cm, recycled paper 110gr
Thoughts about entropy We are what is around us.
First, what are the elements that surround our selves, what are they? That is one of our obsessions ... or is it a necessity for survival?
We constantly strive to define the ‘other’, the external to us, to generate sense and to run from the unknown. The fears, these fears. Defining our environment is to define ourselves. To do so we constantly repeat the following : we look, we divide in order to isolate, then we can locate and therefore define...whatever it is. Eureka, now we are safe, and in response we can anchor ourselves and others.
Time shapes this process. As time passes, it undermines, erodes, dissolves the boundaries of the previously defined elements. And we are back to defining it again, so we look, divide, isolate, locate, define.
One element divided in two gives two elements to divide, n’est-ce pas. The whole process has a hint of pointlessness. Pointless in the time wasted on a recurrent thinking process. But inevitable because to define is to define ourselves and therefore to BE, some enlightenment writers would argue. Maybe keeping boundaries softer may be a key to navigating life with more ease?
Living with entropy.
