Ilana Halperin, born in New York City in 1973, works and lives between Glasgow and the Isle of Bute, Scotland. Her singular work, inspired by geology, sparked from Cairn, which offered her a residence between 2021 and 2022, in order to study at close range the natural phenomena happening in the UNESCO Global Geopark of Haute Provence, located near Digne-les-bains.
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Ilana Halperin, born in New York City in 1973, works and lives between Glasgow and the Isle of Bute, Scotland. Her singular work, inspired by geology, sparked from Cairn, which offered her a residence between 2021 and 2022, in order to study at close range the natural phenomena happening in the UNESCO Global Geopark of Haute Provence, located near Digne-les-bains. Working across weaving, watercolour, engraving, installation, writing and ready-made; art, science, philosophy and intimate narratives find a shared language.
Similar to Les Pénitents des Mées, a vast puddingstone (a rock composed of heterogeneous pebbles swept along by ancient currents), the American artist agglomerates stories that, at first glance, do not seem to share anything in common. The hand gesture of a Blieux craftswoman weaves a fabric whose patterns echo the geological strata of the mountains surrounding her village; 23 million year old footprints of birds and fossilized sea lilies whose remnants form L’Etoiles des Alpes adorn an engraved alabaster plaque of ancient organic origins; tiles made from local clay pressed against bodies which are now long gone, become an intimate link between one generation and another.
From the ground to the roof and sky, the body is a point of contact; a trace fossil forming a canopy of tiles. Henceforth, time expands. Mountains and rocks, which remind us they are the product of the living, become reanimated again, an infinite source of narratives, deeply embedded in our connected identities. A series of mineral “portraits” in watercolour by Ilana Halperin result, executed from memory and full of empathy, drawing on techniques usually associated with painting ‘en plein air’. Like a travelog or an alternative field diary, her meetings with stones in the Geopark are meticulously recorded. Private aesthetics confront that of the Museum of Art or of Natural History. Fine details, traced with water and pigment, evoke both the micro scale and that of the landscapes in which the conversations occurred. Conversations with the geologists from the Geoparc led Halperin to understand the infamous calcifying tower of Saint Benoît; her geological neighbour down the path from the artist residency, in a new way. Recognizing the tower grew through the delicate interaction between water, minerals and life, the artist developed a new textile work in collaboration with a Scottish craftswoman, in response. A historical record of new born rock features in one last element within the exhibition; as if lifted from a family album for both people and stone – we find a collection of postcards of the Grande Fontaines from the centre of Digne-les-Bains, where the newly grown stone changes through the course of its long life; alongside friends and family.