Le Salon Vert is delighted to be hosting Mathilde Tinturier and her creative magic. Originally from the canton of Vaud, Mathilde has lived in Geneva since 2002. She trained in painting and textile design before moving naturally towards installation art.
The Constellations shown by Mathilde Tinturier are representative of her love of nature and her creativity, through which she magnifies the qualities of simple elements. In this exhibition, she invites us to celebrate the dandelion in all its forms: in buds, flowers, and leaves, but above all, in its fragile white blowballs – equally vibrant, delicate and symbolic, as they are the symbol of the Larousse dictionaries, scattering knowledge to the four winds.
Fascinated by their transformations and countless virtues, she has been picking dandelions for years. Often pulled out as a weed, every part of this plant is in fact useful – and in all sorts of ways as well: in salads, jams, and herbal teas. Mathilde Tinturier likes them best when their flower heads form downy globes, just before the seeds float off. Picking them before they have fully bloomed, she dries them, arranges them in a crown, places them under a cloche, hangs them upside down, or detaches their achenes and their hairy pappus, to place them – one by one, like little stars – in one of her compositions or to transplant them meticulously onto the pieces of a chess set. Truly a goldsmith’s work.