Elvire Bonduelle
House, Car, Dog is the trinity of suburban happiness that Elvire Bonduelle revisits through her multimedia installations, combining paintings, furniture and objects in colorful pseudo-naive aesthetics reminiscent of Jacques Tati’s films. Built between 1893 and 1917, the 8 brick houses of Colonels Row are opulent for their time. Located on Comfort Road, they initially had a view of the sea before the construction of the Liggett Halls barracks. Through a complete room environment, Elvire Bonduelle looks to the history of Governor’s island through the eye of the post-cold-war-middle-class-American dream.
Made of words perfectly calligraphed on canvas over gesturally painted waves, her paintings revel in their own simplicity consisting of readymade expressions or repetitions of a single word. The recurrent wave motif is reminiscent of insularity and echoes the military dimension. No more "painter's touch", a mechanical trace repeats itself, similar but different.
Furniture and objects have animated the work of Bonduelle, she has produced picnic chairs, waiting room chairs, adapters, lamps, moldings etc., always in reaction to architecture, from Hausmannian apartments, expressions of the Parisian bourgeoisie to suburban pavilions in the outskirts of Bangkok. Building modules to “cut corners”; cushions-wedges, small crutches for everyday discomforts, Bonduelle utilizes a repertoire of images and objects with apparently joyful potential. She questions the house-car-dog ideals with hints at urban and suburban alienation alluding to the military past of the island and its conversion into a giant playground. Born in Paris in 1981, Elvire Bonduelle, lives and works in Paris.
With support from Villa Albertine in partnership with the French Embassy
For more information contact jackson@joseebienvenu.com or call (646) 489 8342