Catherine Danou presents two series of works on paper connected by a common theme: confrontation and avoidance.

In the first series, “Crossing the Edges,” imaginary imprints are placed on a grid in a deliberately irregular manner—sometimes confined within the frame, sometimes extending beyond the imposed space—evoking a sense of possible avoidance. This motif seems to repeat endlessly, always the same yet always different, like an imaginary book.

From 2019 onward, the artist sought a new, simpler, more gestural and stripped-down language, perhaps even more demanding. This led to the creation of the series “Between Two,” in which her choices manifest through the gesture of tearing and arranging papers in a formal exploration to establish a balanced relationship.

Alain Eludut

Catherine Danou does not check boxes. To step out or remain within them are the broad questions posed by her unfinished grids, covered with imprints, writings, and indecipherable hand-drawn or brushed signs. With this index of seemingly similar yet subtly different marks, the former lawyer overturns established order. Her preferred support, Lokta paper, aligns with her intentions: made in the eastern Himalayas, this traditional Nepalese paper contains fibers that she removes or doubles, altering the trajectory of these lines of life. Tone and consistency vary with the rainy season: snow or coffee, fragile or strong—the profile, never standard, guides her “music,” played continuously in a subdued manner.

Whether she works on the reverse, whitens, or constructs the surface, Danou economizes her gestures, leaving space for chance. Such is the case with her “coincidences,” torn papers hastily assembled according to edge alignments or tonal dissonances. Her “folded-back” palette is not without color: red and mint, blue and yellow form here and there disunited pairs whose harmony recalls the scores of Paul Klee or Nicolas de Staël. Elsewhere, the ultrablack of Soulages permeates her textures, reminiscent of the secret alphabets of Henri Michaux or Pierrette Bloch. It is in the interval—where “the eye moves,” free yet constantly engaged—that the work speaks. Or, more precisely, “whispers.”

Virginie Huet