Synopsis

Presented from 28 November 2025 to 10 January 2026 at Galerie Catherine Pennec in Clermont-Ferrand, the exhibition “Eau et Lumière : broder le vivant” brought together works by textile artist Lou Salamon, offering a selection of embroideries, drawings and hybrid materials that unfold a sensitive and organic exploration of living forms.

Lou Salamon’s work develops a language in which thread becomes a means of expression. Each stitch, each bead, captures and refracts light, evoking the fluidity of water, the vibration of breath, and the fragility of natural structures. Trained in Lunéville embroidery and graduated in applied arts, the artist combines technical precision with a free, intuitive gesture, creating a continuous dialogue between drawing and embroidery.

Rooted in an early fascination with the natural world — insects, plants, and organic structures — her work reveals a profuse and intricate universe in which living forms emerge in all their complexity. Her pieces express a tension between order and overflow, control and expansion, permanence and transformation.

The act of embroidering, often described by the artist as a form of dance or trance, engages both body and mind. It gives rise to a language that is at once intimate and universal, addressing themes such as vulnerability, resilience and metamorphosis. The integration of materials such as glass beads enhances the interplay of light and the contrasts between fluidity and rigidity.

Already exhibited in institutions and venues dedicated to textile and contemporary art, Lou Salamon here affirms a distinctive practice at the crossroads of embroidery, drawing and a deeply inhabited visual expression.

New York Reinvented — Between Pigments, Pixels, and Memory

The Catherine Pennec Gallery was pleased to present the exhibition “Snapshots - instantanés de New York” by visual artist Frédéric Nolleau, from October 16 to November 15, 2025, in Clermont-Ferrand.

Trained as a graphic designer, Frédéric Nolleau has developed a hybrid practice blending photography and painting, in which each image becomes material for transformation. Starting with photographs taken on location in New York, the artist engages in a process of visual alterations—erasures, overlays, pigmentation, dissections—that reinvents the city as mental landscapes.

In this previously unseen body of work, New York no longer presents itself as a postcard saturated with clichés, but as an inner, fragmented, sensory city. The works, halfway between document and fiction, explore zones of ambiguity: between the real and the imaginary, between memory and erasure, between the visible and the buried.

“What I’m looking for is a tension. An atmosphere. Something slightly unstable, on the edge of the visible,” explains the artist.

“I photograph without seeking the beautiful image—I seek zones of ambiguity. ”

The opening took place on Thursday, October 16, and many of you came to discover his works and discuss his unique approach, inspired by contemplative cinema, fragmented narratives, and the urban rhythms of the global city.

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

Paul Israël – La Maison du Léopard - October 11 /November 11 2025

It happens that an exhibition has a title like a mask, a metaphor, or a key. La Maison du Léopard, at Paul Israël’s place, has three at a time. One enters it as one goes through a dream : a house without fixed walls, inhabited by echoes, fragments and invisible presences.

Painter, writer, traveler without compass, Paul Israël has made wandering a method, and doubt a base. From the rue du Faubourg Saint-Denis where he grew up – a living mosaic of scents, cries and colors – to the roads of Europe in the 1970s, he never ceases to question reality through its margins.

Trained at the Beaux-Arts in Paris, he soon came into contact with figures from the alternative scene and participated in the creation of magazines where texts and images are interlinked in an open dialogue. His work flourishes in this fertile chiaroscuro between painting, writing, dream and memory. Although he does not claim any belonging, the spirit of surrealism crosses his paintings like a free breath. Decisive encounters – Claude Tarnaud, Jacques Lacomblez – have built bridges to a line of poets whose words, even if silent, illuminate the image.

In "La Maison du Léopard", Paul Israël does not show anything; he invites people to live. The title animal – both a predator and an apparition – evokes a watcher of the threshold, a force hidden between instinct and mystery. Each work is a room, a corner of this mental house, where coexist vestiges of childhood, floating visions, and shards of the world.

To paint, in Paul Israël’s work, is not to illustrate a speech; it is to let flush out what persists when the words fade away. His paintings are the precipitates of a worried, tender, lucid look. There is a fidelity to wonder here, a form of poetic resistance to the disenchantment of the world.

The exhibition was intended as a threshold: that of the intimate, the invisible, the strange familiar. A space for listening. A house where the leopard watches – and perhaps dreams. 

Synopsis

Usually hidden from view, the works from the gallery’s storage were unveiled together for the first time. Paintings on silk, oil paintings on wood, photographs, geometric abstractions… This summer exhibition offered a kaleidoscopic view of contemporary art, featuring rare mediums and contrasting sensibilities.

From Zhang Chi’s fine silk to Théo Lopez’s vibrant abstractions, including the animated cardboard works of Philippe Hérard and Babu Bommel, the works on paper and wood by Laurent Delaire, and not to mention the paper sculptures by Julien Vantal that remained on display in the gallery’s windows throughout the summer… each work resonates with another, creating a visual polyphony.

An invitation to rediscover the collection in a new light.

Catherine Pennec

Julien Vantal's work explores the connections between Art, Nature, and Man, questioning our relationship with the living world and its fragility. He says he creates nothing but simply reproduces this small world that we no longer see, the one we have stopped contemplating. Through his sculptures, he seeks to revive this lost attention, to remind us of the discreet beauty that surrounds us.

Each insect and plant he crafts comes to life under a glass dome, reminiscent of natural history collections of yesteryear, bearing witness to a world both preserved and threatened. His sculptures stand out through the meticulous use of pages from century-old books, silent witnesses of a bygone past. Their texture, scent, and patina carry a forgotten memory that he repurposes to capture the ephemeral.

These fragments of paper, once bearers of lost wisdom, find new life in insects and plants that seem to breathe life. Yet, these small ecosystems are also unsettling mirrors of our impact on nature: silent cries hidden in the folds of paper, questioning what we choose to preserve... and to forget.

Synopsis

Presented from 21 March to 25 May 2025 at Galerie Catherine Pennec in Clermont-Ferrand, this tribute exhibition to Maurice Rocher brought together a significant selection of works from the collection of his daughter, Claire Rocher, offering a compelling overview of a singular Expressionist painter whose work is deeply shaped by the tensions between the sacred and the human condition.

The exhibition highlights Maurice Rocher’s emblematic series, from “Églises” to “Notables”, and from “Women” and “Couples” to the “Suppliciés”, revealing an œuvre driven by a spiritual quest, a clear-eyed vision of human suffering, and an uncompromising observation of social dynamics. Through a dense pictorial material and often sombre palette, the artist develops a powerful visual language in which figures and structures seem animated by an inner life.

The opening reception was a particularly meaningful occasion, marked by the honour of welcoming the painter’s family, whose presence brought a living connection to the artist’s legacy. This spirit of transmission continued on Saturday 17 May during a reading session dedicated to the biography of Maurice Rocher written by his daughter, Anne Rocher. Joined by her sisters, she shared an intimate and insightful perspective on her father’s life and work, creating a deeply engaging moment of exchange with the audience.

This exhibition offered an opportunity to rediscover an unclassifiable artist, both mystical and profoundly rooted in human experience, whose work remains strikingly relevant today.

A selection of works by Maurice Rocher, along with publications dedicated to his work, is still available at the gallery. Visuals, including titles, dates, techniques, media and dimensions, can be viewed on the gallery’s website section dedicated to the artist. The gallerist remains available for any enquiries or further information.

26.

Supplicié N°058

Huile sur toile

1987

100x81 (40F)

Synopsis

Laurent Delaire’s paintings consistently explore the theme of the transition between two worlds. In his “Black of Mars” series, the viewer is invited to pierce through the enveloping darkness to discover the light that is always present on the horizon. In 2023, we had the pleasure of discovering, through “Ces Blancs que je creuse,” the incredible work of subtraction carried out by the painter to lead us toward that light. 

His Lisières series, presented in January / February 2025 at the Galerie Catherine Pennec in Clermont-Ferrand, takes a different path, leading from clarity to the mysterious darkness of the undergrowth, spaces of the unknown and fascination. These seemingly opposing journeys are ultimately a metaphor for an introspective quest. 

Deep forests, hedges, isolated rocks, fences, or even windows and paintings within the painting stand out against a refined depth, suggesting as many paths toward inner exploration. 

Alongside them, scrolls of asemic writing—a practice combining the presence of the gesture with an assumed spirituality—extend this invitation to mystery and contemplation.

About the artist:

Alongside a career as a translator and teacher, Laurent Delaire (born in 1971) is self-taught and now devotes all his time to his artistic practice. Working at the intersection of painting, drawing, and installation art, he is a regular participant in art fairs such as MacParis and Puls’art.

His works have been exhibited at the Empreintes Gallery and during artist residencies. Among his recent notable exhibitions are the Parcours de l’art in Avignon (2018, 2020), the Lyon Biennale in partnership with MAPRAA (2019), a solo exhibition at the Campredon Art Center (2022), and solo exhibitions at the Catherine Pennec Gallery in 2023 and at the Chamalières Municipal Gallery of Contemporary Art and Galerie 66 in Périgueux in 2024.

Presentation of works:

The Lisières series highlights deep forests, natural barriers, and isolated elements, evoking paths toward introspection. Alongside these, scrolls of asemic writing extend this exploration of gesture and spirituality.