Inès Longevial: Tennis Elbow 100

Art is not a balance—it is balances. Concessions. Mediations. Teeter-Totters. En francais, c’est un “bascule- bascule.”

So when the Parisian artist Ines Longevial explains that she paints herself but that she does not paint herself, she is explaining that her paintings are actually dualistic in structure, and multiply so—ces tableaux contiennent plusieurs mariages des differents.

Most basically, Longevial uses her own form as an exterior upon which to project her interior—but the connection stops there. She treats her body not like a subject but an object, subject to change. Like a blank page in a coloring book which she can color as freely as she pleases. A white sheet hastily tacked up for a movie screen upon which she can project her own interior movies and slides.

It is not just via this spinning yin-yang that Longevial has always made her art, but also the way she has always framed the world. Her methodologies and motivations are not those of graduate arts programs. She doesn’t express or channel or interrogate or critique, and she is quick to point out, self-effacingly, that she fears speaking about her work might make her sound naïve.

In truth, she speaks quite well. (Plus, wouldn’t it be refreshing if an artist sounded naïve, anyway?) Besides, the relationship that Longevial explores has a pretty august lineage, having universally bedeviled artists, scientists and writers for millennia. What is the body? What is the soul? How do they come together? That’s what we are all wondering.

The canvases in her May 2022 show at the Journal Gallery explore a particularly poignant moment that we all know well: those late-afternoon, late-August moments when the sun and the summer begin to dip. Just a little, but noticeably so. The tans and burns are still there, but the shadows are creeping a little longer.

Ironically, it’s through focusing on her own personal feelings that Longevial has become so dexterous at painting something so universal. Each of us thinks for themselves, but what Inès feels, we all feel.

David Colman