From 11 to 26 October 2019, Mouvements Modernes, presents in the

heart of Saint-Germain, in front of La Palette at 5 rue Jacques Callot,

the work of the French-Australian Nadège Desgenétez.

This glassmaker and teacher, originally from Normandy, has lived, worked and

exhibited in Europe, North America and Australia.

After receiving numerous awards, grants (Prix d'Honneur de la Fondation

de France) and residencies in France, United Kingdom, United States and

Australia, she has been teaching since 2005 at the Glass Workshop of the

Australian University of Canberra.

All of her travels have inspired her work, which draws on her experience

as a migrant and creator exploring ideas of connection to place.

Her work extracts references to the body, familiar landscapes and the

glass-blowing process.

Here is what she says about the medium through which she expresses

herself, the glass: . When I consider my relationship to the medium of

glass, specifically blown glass, I am strongly aware of my physical

connection to my work. At once physical and mental, glass blowing requires

a commitment to the present, a keen awareness of the body’s

boundaries and abilities and of the specific needs of the molten glass.

Forming, or transforming, in response to the body, the material is shaped

by touch, with breath, answering every move, in a sequence that cannot

be interrupted or postponed. Objects made of hand blown glass embody

the process through which they are made. This allows for an inherent

connection between the glass blower and the blown object, but also between

the object, the place in which it is made, and the maker. .

Art historian, scholar and former Museum of Arts and Design director,

Glenn Adamson, described her work as follows: .It would be difficult to

overstate my surprise and amazement on encountering the work of

Nade ge Desgenétez, [which] combined sensuous, consummately crafted

forms with a probing investigation of feminist iconography. Most impressively,

she uses the materiality of glass itself to suggestive effect. Her

sculptures reflect light when polished, but capture and internalize light

when sand blasted, creating the impression of varying states of mind, extroverted

and introverted, and of contrasting states of the body as well,

subjective and objectified. It is an entrancing and sophisticated body of

work..

With this first solo show in France, Nadège Desgenétez will once again

seek to express the presence of the body and its interrelationship with

place by exploiting the way in which glass interacts with light, colour and

space through form, surface and reflection. Fragmentation, fluidity and

immobility as an exploration of the interrelationships between the place

of the body and manufacturing will be its main threads. Through her sculptures

in coloured or uncoloured glass, reflective or matt but always abstract

and infinitely poetic, she will question the body of the viewer in

space.