Memory Lake
Recreate a landscape from memory
Memory Lake marks a turning point in Juliette June's artistic practice. For the first time, the artist abandoned photography as a source material and worked exclusively from observational drawings made on site. Inspired by a journey through New Zealand in 2020, this series of paintings, drawings, collages, and a performance explores memory as an inner landscape, where recollection is reconstructed through fragments rather than faithful representation.
« Si ma mémoire est un lac, alors je nage à sa surface, récupérant deci delà des débris de souvenirs, des parcelles de sensations : une lumière orange sur la tente de camping, la ligne horizontale et souple tracée par un canard qui fend l’étendue imperturbable. »
The Wild Children — Exhibition and Performance
17 October – 1 November 2020
Former Lidl Building • Capbreton
The Memory Lake series was first presented publicly as part of a group exhibition bringing together around fifty artists. On this occasion, Juliette June exhibited the first paintings from the series alongside the performance Am I a Mountain?
The audience was invited to take part in the creation of an ephemeral artwork: volunteers stood in front of a large painted collage while their silhouettes were drawn in oil pastel. Accompanied by the poem Am I a Mountain?, the performance explored the relationships between the body, the landscape, and memory.
Uharte Txikiak / Islets — Duo Exhibition
23 March – 3 April 2022
Villa Ducontenia • Saint-Jean-de-Luz
The Memory Lake series was presented for a second time in this exhibition, which brought together the works of Juliette June and Basque painter Aitor Etxeberria, winners of the first and second prizes of the Adour-Bidasoa 2020 competition.
The two artistic worlds entered into dialogue around landscape, memory, and emerging forms, in an exhibition that symbolically bridged the French and Spanish sides of the Basque Country.
Photos @Alice Lemarain