GATHERING
15.12.2024 to 25.01.2025 · Julia Gaudard
Figures become a gathering
Gathering brought together Julia Gaudard’s painted characters as a social field. Repeated structures, direct faces and saturated colour turn individual images into a group with its own rhythm and presence.
Small shifts in eyes, mouth, symmetry and expression make every character distinct. Seen together, the works behave like a crowd: open, guarded, comic, awkward, warm and intense.
Nine faces, one field
The core series is presented as one graphic unit. Each painting keeps its own character while the repetition of scale, frame and colour turns the nine works into a single visual system.
A gathering of vivid personalities
Gathering is exactly that: a meeting of people, characters and, ultimately, a meeting with art. Installed together, Julia Gaudard’s vividly coloured figures read almost like an oversized graphic photo booth, each face carrying its own attitude while remaining part of a larger crowd.
The repetition of scale and framing creates a shared rhythm without flattening the differences between them. Some characters feel familiar, some awkward, some comic or mysterious. The wall becomes a social space populated by personalities rather than a neutral display surface.
Painting becomes object
Julia used the exhibition to move deliberately between techniques: acrylic on wood in custom-made frames, ink and permanent marker on fine art paper, and individually cut wooden elements that were painted and reassembled into compact picture-sculptures.
The relationship with wood continues ideas already present in Zusammen II, including the large Orient and Occident works, but here the scale becomes more intimate. These smaller pieces behave like mini friends: part painting, part object, and part character inhabiting the room.
From wonderful beings to almost kaiju
The portraits on paper push expression much further. Ink and permanent marker produce immediate, highly graphic faces whose eyes, mouths and silhouettes can turn from tender to strange in a few lines. Some feel like wonderful imaginary beings; others sit right on the edge of becoming little kaiju.
That range is central to Gathering. Julia builds personality through economy: a contour, a colour, a glance or an exaggerated feature is enough to suggest an entire character. Together, the works form a rich cast rather than a repeated motif.
Enquire about works
For availability, dimensions, additional images or a private viewing, contact Mauer Gallery directly.