Joëlle Dubois @ Thomas Rehbein Galerie

Joëlle Dubois

Opening: January 17th 2020

Filip Luyckx | BEYOND VIRTUAL RELATIONSHIPS

New developments in technology and culture often generate both emancipation and new alienation. Worn-out forms ofoppression give way to modern tendencies that entail an unknown threat. The first waves of feminism were accompanied by theemergence of a public, film industry, and pornography that greedily displayed the female body as a covetous object. While thepost-feminist wave is responding to the aforementioned excesses, a voyeuristic tendency in social media is on the rise. Whathappens to the female body is even more true for exoticism. The paradisiacal representations of Orientalism did not stopcolonialism. Once exotic glamor and patronage have disappeared, we regard other people as dangerous competitors withquestionable principles.The concept of intimacy also changed over time. Our vulnerability gradually became anchored in other people, objects andcults. What we have previously protected as a threatened territory (e.g. living room or naked body), we now voluntarily throw inthe virtual space. Often these protected places have become formalisms, whilst our contemporary intimacy is looking for otherplaces. We think we can get a glimpse into the deepest feelings and the brains of others through the new media, while stayingsafe in our living room. The Internet encourages us to explore "unknown horizons". But as soon as we look for personalcontacts, our body comes into playThe medial glasses give users high physical expectations, as traditional media have always cultivated ideals of physical beauty.The contact seeker competes with the body profile of countless others. Thus, the communication falls into a cultivatedsuperficiality. The media revolution also includes positive aspects for intimacy. In the long term, users learn to put corporeality inperspective, just as previous generations have been fed up with television images. The participants learn to get in touch quicklywith a multitude of people and to critically evaluate them. The virtual contacts also leave traces, since the iPhone acts as apicture archive of the contacts.All these themes can be found in one way or another in the acrylic paintings by Joëlle Dubois. Art is a measure of socialdevelopment. It registers and comments on our behavior. Dubois's compositions evoke a whole series of observations that leadto the analysis of our virtual experience. It could be the pictures that appear on an iPhone, but then as condensed scenes. Infact, attention is shifted from the digital screen to the experience space through colors, lines and shapes. Attitudes and facesreveal the psychological effect of communication, objects clarify the context. It quickly becomes apparent that the protagonistsdeviate from the false optimism expressed in advertising images. Although the warm colors suggest a world of glamor andseduction, we still see loneliness, fear or anger in the faces. Clothing and decor are rather cheesy than luxurious. Thesepictures show that "chatting" means more than pouring out one’s heart. It also determines our manners and timing. Theanonymity of the city is extended to the virtual city. This creates a freedom without history and social connections, whichnevertheless is of great importance to society, not necessarily in what is said but in how it is said. It is difficult to find a greatercontrast between the volatility of technological devices and a painting that requires the concentration of time and craftsmanship.Interacting with other cultures, Dubois' work refers to history, creating an analytical distance to the virtual culture into which weare immersed.