A contemporary visual artist, Tatiana Trouvé was born in Italy and is currently based in Paris. Her practice spans sculpture, drawing, painting, architecture, installation, and video. The dimension of time serves as the underlying theme of her work, as she challenges the boundaries between the mental and the physical, where material space and form merge with time and memory. Her creations are melancholic and charged, incorporating spaces that oscillate between the real and the imagined.
In her 2015 work Desire Lines, Trouvé brought the motif of Central Park’s pathways into the space of Lincoln Center in New York. The installation responds to the 212 pedestrian paths that weave through Central Park—akin to the lifeblood of a living organism—by mirroring them in 212 colorful spools of thread. The piece functions both as an index of the park and as a cultural atlas of walking.
Cosmogony is a work from the Cosmos series. The title refers to three used furniture pieces draped with intricately adorned blankets. At first glance, the upholstery appears soft, but in reality, it is cast in solid bronze. Through this transformation, Trouvé turns the ordinary into sculpture—an embodiment of her approach to the world.
In art history, material weight often conveys a sense of burden, and here, the furniture seems on the verge of collapse under its own mass. This tension prepares the viewer to discover the detailed drawings covering the blankets and furniture. In some cases, these intricate markings smooth out the objects’ surfaces, creating a visual longing for meaning—expressed through diagrams and topographies.
Bottom line: A tangible imaginary reality.
