Hélène Yousse y Johannes Zacherl, two artists in the Empordà
| Once upon a time there was a French girl, a Scorpion in the zodiac, and a young Frenchman who was Leo. Both wanted to be artists. He had no doubt about this since he was a child, although he spent some time as a musician before picking up his brushes. She also knew, but kept it a secret. They met at the entrance of a French art school near Bordeaux in 1987-88. They were last on the list, Hélène Yousse and Johannes Zachrl, Y, Z. They have been together since that moment. And since then they are bound in a very forceful and special way by the A of amor (love) and of art. United as few others and with little else than their love and their art, they arrived in 1994 in the region of Girona. A friend showed them a house that had once been the bar in Gaüses, in the Baix Empordà. They had no doubts from the very first moment. They have lived there since then, where everything happens slowly, gently; where sounds are respected and don’t overlap; where doors are opened hospitably and things start from the beginning with a drink at the bar. Here they have built their world, their ABC, their life transformed and intensified with the birth of their son Teo, seven years ago. We remember their beginnings in Girona with a memorable exhibition by Hélène Yousse at the Municipal exhibition rooms on the Rambla of Girona in January 1995. For the first time she showed sculptures here that left no one indifferent. They are figures without faces made of wire and covered in fabric. They seem strangely vital mummies that eradiate tenderness. For a while she made these figures fly, making them dance and float in the air, then again she would force them to the ground, as if they evoked the security that the artist herself found with her creations. She had only ventured into sculpture three years before her exhibition on the Rambla of Girona. She started out with painting and drawing, but became deliriously fascinated by the manipulation of materials and, above all, by the fact that sculpture allowed her to see and touch many more things than painting. Meanwhile, Johannes Zacherl stuck to painting. In time, he developed a strong and captivating language that expresses itself with great ease on large formats. He communicates everything in painting that he cannot convey in words. He uses colours in different densities and vibrations. Often he sets out from the dark grey of the canvas and gives it substance, letting it emerge from the foundation of the canvas to rise to the foreground. He does this with ease, without touching the substratum. In this way he creates an impressive visual game, because the surface least worked upon, when set in contrast with the brush strokes of colour, rises to the foreground. And so nothing becomes essential. Zacherl is an heir of the German expressionists: they are my main source of images, my spiritual parents, and, after many years of work, my friends. He works in series, going from sunflowers to fish, for example; he went back to these objects time and again because he likes consistent investigation. Now he is working on a subject at once more friendly and more complicated: Hélène. Precisely now, in the plenitude of their lives and their history. If there is something he can’t explain to me, I only need to look at his pictures, says she. Hélène also remarks that she needs to work with sculpture because she cannot stick to the limits of a canvas. She observes and admires her partner as he concentrates and traces contours and movements of all he can see. She focuses on the same elements, and without noticing herself has surpassed all dimensions sight can offer. That is why she likes to let her sculptures play with shadows; this way her effigies become more and reflect the continuity of a figure outside its physical limits. They become the sum of inside and outside, of truth and falseness, of transparency and shadow. With this passion for space, it is no surprise that in the last years she has developed important projects with her soul mate, the choreographer Yvonne Pouget. Among the next destinations for Hélène and Johannes’ works are Portbou, Sitges, and Madrid in her case. He exhibits in the gallery Ambit in Barcelona and in Germany. And with a Scorpion here and a Leo there, this is an important tale.// TINA CASADEMONT FOTOS ANDREA FERRÉS www.heleneyousee.com www.zacherl.es |
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