Juliette Dumas
MEGAPTERA
Summer 2019
JULIETTE DUMAS, Whale Fluke (Le Grand Bleu), 2018, Clay & pigments on paper mounted on canvas. Two Panels: each 60 x 72 x 3 in. Overall dimensions: 60 x 144 x 3 in. (152.40 x 365.76 cm). Permanent Collection of the Charles Library at Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, Gift of Alumni Dennis Alter.
Megaptera (from the Greek mega-/"giant" and ptera/)"wing"), refers to the large back tails of Whales, a species that was present on Earth 30 million years before us and travels 16,000 miles every year, continuously swimming, while making sonic maps of the ocean floor. Each individual whale fluke (tail) carries specific markings resulting from attacks by predators, fishing gear entanglements, boat collisions and the continuous thrashing through water.
Dumas's work between 2013-2016, after graduating from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Villa Arson in Nice France, consisted of highly intellectual ephemeral installations that tried to sound the alarm about the environmental crisis on our planet. Dumas realized that installing ephemeral installations triggered by an anxiety and responsibility for the planet did not help enough to bring a higher level of consciousness. After No Safe Harbor (Dumas's first Solo Exhibition in 2016 with the gallery), Dumas operated a 180 degrees shift in her thinking for her second Solo Exhibition, ANGELS, 2018. Dumas's epiphany brought her to see that human thought has the power to create, and that instead of fueling an already bad situation with ideas of collapse, she wanted her work to project strength and hope for the future. She started seeking ways to replace the feeling of fear by the feeling of love, resilience, gratitude and joy.
It is then that Dumas discovered Ho'ponopono, the Ancient Hawaiian Practice of Forgiveness to restore balance. She searched for an “icon” image and naturally gravitated to the Humpback Whale who embodies the energy of love and resilience. The Hawaiians call them Koholas, the guardians of sacred energy, and regard them as deities.
Dumas started working on her "Whale Fluke Paintings" series in New York City from late 2016 to 2018. First, with smaller diptychs of the whale flukes which later evolved to be life-sized. During that period, actual whales were starting to gather in the City's harbor in numbers never seen before. Dumas did not have that knowedge then, and only discovered that fact long time after her exhibition took place. Hence the extraordinary relevance of her work which was created at that time.
JULIETTE DUMAS, Whale Fluke (Night), 2018, Clay & pigments on paper mounted on canvas. Two Panels: each 60 x 72 x 3 in. Overall dimensions: 60 x 144 x 3 in. (152.40 x 365.76 cm). Important Private Collection, USA.
“Juliette Dumas’s large-scale paintings of whales’ flukes manage to refresh a subject that has borne more than its share of sentimentality. For an artist to address the whale, a subject that’s been romanticized for two full centuries and exposed to every level of public discourse from international litigation to grade school posters, would require a fresh perspective, which is what I believe Juliette Dumas has managed to summon.”
- Peter Malone, Hyperallergic, April 2018
Juliette Dumas, Whale Fluke (Night), 2018, two Panels. Private Collection USA.
© Photographie Valérie Gueit
Dumas is foremost a painter by formation. An important factor in her premise is that she subscribes to the “Rio Negro Manifesto” created in Brazil in 1978 by French art critic Pierre Restany while he travelled the Amazon river. The manifesto he wrote, with two other Brazilian artists, is all about “Art for Nature” and about raising Consciousness about Earth and the Natural World Through Art. In short, Dumas paintings are a study of the language of Nature, she is about raising consciousness.
Installation View, JULIETTE DUMAS, Whale Fluke (Le Grand Bleu), 2018, Permanent Collection of the Charles Library at Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, Gift of Alumni Dennis Alter. USA.
JULIETTE DUMAS (French, b. 1987 in Paris. Lives and works in France)
Dumas was born in France in 1987. She completed her BA at Villa Arson, in Nice, France in 2010 and her MFA at School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) in 2013. Dumas has been awarded artist residencies at FIAF, Alliance Francaise, NY in 2007; Festival Grandeur Nature, Ristolas, France in 2009 and La Station, Nice in 2015. She was nominated in 2013 for the Clare Rosen and Samuel Edes Foundation Prize for Emerging Artists by the Painting and Drawing Department of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Dumas’ work was featured in notable group exhibitions including: “Ad Hoc” (2015), La Station, Nice, France (curated by Collectif Culbuto); “Incantations” (2016) and «2020» (2017), The Chimney, NY; “Unseen Hand” (2017), Knockdown Center, NY; “Les Silences de la Fumée” (2017), Hjalteyri, Iceland; “Endnotes” (2018), The Chimney, NY; “Morceaux Choisis” (2021), Bubenberg Gallery, Paris. And notable solo exhibition in Europe, “Winter Studies” (2015), Kunstverein Gaestezimmer E.V, Stuttgart, Germany (Curated by Alf Setzer).
Dumas first solo exhibitions in the United States, took place at Silas von Morisse Gallery, New York, SAFE HARBOR (2016), ANGELS (2018), which presented her critically acclaimed two lifesize "Whale Fluke Paintings". In France, the artist presented DELPHIS TALE (2021) and THE GATEWAY (2023), a life size sculpture of Whale Bones, a continuation of her dialogue and preoccupation with Whales.
Her work is included in numerous international private and corporate collections and is permanently exhibited in the Collection of Temple University New Charles Library, Philadelphia, PA, gift from Alumni and Collector Dennis Alter.
JULIETTE DUMAS, Whale Fluke (NIGHT), 2018, Clay & pigments on paper mounted on canvas. Two Panels: each 60 x 72 x 3 in. Overall dimensions: 60 x 144 x 3 in. (152.40 x 365.76 cm). Private Collection, USA.