From Annecy lake where she swam as a child, to glacier melt in the Mont Blanc mountain range that she contemplates from her Alpine studio, Sabine Cibert conjures up scenery in her majestic textile compositions, as contemporary evocations of hanging tapestries from the olden days

Her pieces are all sewn by hand and may take up to two years to reach completion, since they all take up several square metres. Based on geometric orthogonal shapes – rectangles and squares – Sabine Cibert’s compositions are huge, dynamic, ever-shifting. With the outsize format, she achieves ever expanding, colourful scenery in perpetual motion. Textiles afford an infinite variety of  both colours and motifs produced by the various weaves. Thus giving rise to images that appear to be scattered; rippling out and echoing, then rebounding in all directions.

Inspired by research into abstraction by Paul Klee and Karl Hermann Haupt, Sabine Cibert analyses, unpacks and deflects the original motif. All the while projecting the impression  of violent, grandiose nature peopled with the mountains, glaciers, ravines and torrents that inspire her. Her work might be defined as sensitive abstraction.

The Running Water series (2014 – 2021) comprises four monumental works, each made up of thousands of textile squares, 3 or 6 centimetres wide,  heralding a shift in Sabine Cibert’s output.

While executing the first of the series, Sabine Cibert realised that the “wrong” side of her work, due shortly to disappear beneath the other layers during the assembly stage, was actually fascinating with its untold variations of form. On the right side, the squares sit neatly side by side, each allocated a clearly defined perimeter, while on the wrong side, they merge merrily, their boundaries are blurred. This spurred the production of a work that was purposely assembled to exhibit the “wrong” side, to put forward a fresh view. The assembly work is on show, heightening the optical impact. “Running Water 3” affords greater depth in its coloured composition. This new dimension conveys a fresh sensuality, as if matter was layered over with ether

This series taps into more recent research, in which atmospheric effects are of primary import. Looking beyond the evocation of scenery, the works in the Thaw (2021 – 2023) and Dawn series  (as from 2023) displayed the inapprehendable: shadow, breath, frosty water, sunrise. The natural event that alters the landscape leaves plenty of scope for sensation. In the  “Dawn” series it was no longer a matter of capturing mute, telluric vibrations, furtive accidents leading to disorder, but of passing from one state to another, capturing that furtive moment when the sun pierces through the night. This series is also a tour de force in terms of technique, the shaded colours  yielding to a multitude of variations in colour in which harmony still reigns.

Thomas Leveugle
Exhibition curator
Scheduling manager at the Showroom galerie 7

Exposition Horizons sensibles Fondation Renaud Lyon 2024 – France