Muriel Toulemonde
Born in 1970
Lives and works in Arlès
Whether using video or photography, Muriel Toulemonde shows a keen interest in whatever constitutes an image. Her entire production is constructed like the weave of a fabric, one stitch at a time, until everything becomes connected. Her work can be divided into several periods, from the study of bodies at spas, to the rehabilitation of horses, to training, sprinting, water rescue, or waves... All these worlds bring to mind the notions of body, flow, energy, and seem to play on the antagonism between power and fragility, speed and restraint, strength and inertia, biology and technology... It is precisely in this tension between opposing poles that the complexity of the mechanics of life is expressed. However, beyond this opposition also lies the captivating, not to say hypnotic quality of Muriel Toulemonde's pictures. Her videos, the only post-production of which consists in cutting, extracting, or stretching out, take viewers back to a suspended moment in which they can experience the image as an immersion.