Au creux de nos âmes

ANNE-MARIE AKPLOGAN

Vernissage in the presence of the artist: 27 August 2026, 6pm to 8pm
Exhibition on view until 17 October 2026

I. The language of the body
Have we ever considered what our legs and feet reveal about who we are? For Anne-Marie Akplogan, whether we are in motion or at rest, these parts of the human body can reveal just as much as the gaze in a portrait. A hand wrapped around an ankle, a foot searching for balance, a folded leg, such ordinary gestures that often escape our notice. Yet these movements root us in reality, embodying the material, sensory and lived experience of existence. It is through these fragments of the body that the artist reflects on the ways we inhabit the world.

This exhibition displays works produced during the artist’s Villa Alsacienne residency in Paris, between October 2025 and March 2026. Throughout her residency, Akplogan joined students of the École Alsacienne during their visual arts classes; her social media posts from this period reveal a practice created alongside the young students, in parallel to her own creations. She observed, set exercises, and filmed the ways in which the body expresses emotion. In a way, “Au creux de nos âmes” carries an anthropological dimension. According to the artist, there are walks marked by sadness, by anger, by joy, by pride, and so forth. It could be said that Akplogan seeks within ordinary gestures – bodies at rest, crossed feet, balancing or seen from above – the traces of being in the world, where every posture reflects of an inner state.

This close attention to the body extends through the painting medium itself. During her residency, Akplogan developed techniques that become a distinctive signature of her practice. She dilutes acrylic paint to achieve the translucency of watercolor, applying it in successive layers. At times she incorporates coffee or pastels, using coffee in particular to achieve precise skin tones. In contrast, she also applies thick layers of white acrylic paint to creature texture. When she chooses to work on cardboard, she reveals its fibres by tearing it in places. Painted skin thus becomes a living terrain, marked by its roughness, its scars and its fragilities, making visible the invisible traces that each life inscribes upon the body.

The lack of faces prevents immediate identification. Nonetheless, rather than recognising individuals, we can recognise sensations: the calm of a resting posture, the delicacy of walking on tiptoes, the anxiety with an embrace. What is depicted is not simply the anatomical, but a way of inhabiting oneself, and perhaps of inhabiting the space around us.

II. The breath of souls
The residency and exhibition’s title “Au creux de nos âmes”, meaning “in the hollow of our souls”, holds a poetic resonance and invites viewers to ask themselves: what is this “hollow” to which it refers? The preposition “in” suggests a place, a space that one might enter in order to engage in dialogue with one’s inner self. Can we choose to immerse ourselves in such a space, to gain access to the soul? The French word for soul, “âme”, derives from the Latin anima, meaning breath, the very principle of life. Might this hollow be the arch of the foot, that grounding point where the body encounters the world, where our movements, hesitations and moments of balance leave their imprint? These fragments of the body become the keepers of a silent presence, inviting the viewer to look beyond anatomical representations in order to perceive that a posture can reveal about our way of being in the world. This “hollow” is no longer just a physical cavity; it becomes a space of resonance, where the visible allows a glimpse of the invisible.

III. The memory of feet
Anne-Marie Akplogan’s practice also carries a spiritual dimension. In at least two of the religions practiced in Benin, feet hold symbolic and sacred significance. They are understood as points of contact through which the living may communicate with their ancestors. In certain Vodun ceremonies, traditional ritual dances are performed barefoot; members of the Celestial Church of Christ remove their shoes when dressed for worship. Feet thus become more than a mere means of locomotion: they are the meeting point between the body, the earth, and the spiritual realm. Without directly depicting these practices, Akplogan’s works resonate with their echo. By isolating legs and feet, she invites us to consider these parts of the body as sites of memory, presence and connection, opening onto a more intimate and spiritual dimension of existence.

Far removed from explicit faces or narratives, Anne-Marie Akplogan’s works seek intimacy through that which carries us. Legs and feet become the locus of a silent memory, bearing witness to the paths we have travelled and the emotions we have experienced. These works remind us that our points of support, our movements and our postures do not speak only of our physical presence in the world, but also of the invisible part of ourselves that moves through it. “Au creux de nos âmes” thus invites us to look with fresh eyes upon these ordinary and everyday gestures.