Prune Nourry - Catharsis

Following on from her success at Musée Guimet in 2017, Prune Nourry is taking possession of the Galerie Templon space on Rue Grenier Saint Lazare for the first time with Catharsis. Opening on 7th September, the solo show is made up of a series of new sculptures interacting with extracts from her first feature-length documentary, Serendipity.

The Catharsis exhibition marks a turning point in the artist’s creative process. For over twelve years, Prune Nourry has been developing powerful and thoughtful multidisciplinary work, exploring the body by questioning gender and hybridisation. She has tended to keep her subject at a distance, remaining as objective as a researcher or anthropologist. Having recently overcome breast cancer, over the course of her treatment the artist felt she was becoming the subject of her own work, a sculpture in the hands of the doctors. With Catharsis, armed with her sculptor's tools, Prune Nourry reappropriates her body and her femininity, forging an intimate tie between her past explorations and her current life experience.

Born in 1985 in Paris, Prune Nourry lives and works in New York. She is interested in the fields of science and anthropology, particularly bioethical questions relating to gender selection and the artificial evolution of humankind. She explores these issues with an artistic approach that combines sculpture, installations, performances and video. Over the last few years, the artist has gained recognition for her long-term projects, such as the Terracotta Daughters army, inspired by the Xi’an terracotta warriors. The piece travelled the world between 2013 and 2015, from Paris to China and taking in Zurich, New York and Mexico City.