As part of the 2022 Heritage Days, the visual artist Anne LEVILLAIN, well known by the Angevins, will exhibit his recent works in wire painted in the chapter room of the priory of Breuil-Bellay.
Anne LEVILLAIN thus evokes her work:
"I weave, I twist, I roll, I tie, I cut, I assemble pieces of wire. Of different sizes, they are made out of pencil.
Together they form straight lines, curves, short, long, supple, tense, broken, continuous, interrupted, some extending to infinity…
the paint gives matter, it plays the droplet to the impasto, it accentuates the line, makes the lines vibrate. Often black, touches of sap blue, red, gold or white reveal themselves to the attentive visitor.
The light lines unfold in space and surround surfaces. They sculpt the air, moving from the drawing to the shadow placed on the wall.
The eye travels in these paths that cross, mingle and continue. These compositions made at random rhythmic games are arachnean structures without limits. The result of a singular and sensitive writing.
Beyond the reflection on the line and the line emerges a fragility. These are mirrors, shadow mirrors, lace shadows. They are links, networks that dialogue from the intimate to the universal.
To take the time to look, to observe, to browse and to discover the details that are available to us, to disturb our gaze in profit perhaps of a loss of our thought. Change our relationship to time at the time everything is in the moment."
Anne LEVILLAIN’s creations, in their primordial poetry and simplicity, resonate with the Arachnian architecture of the vault of the chapter house and with the Grandmontane ideal where the values of modesty, poverty and austerity occupy a central place.
The Works exhibited will be available for sale.
The Breuil-Bellay is the most complete and best preserved priory of the monastic order of Grandmont of those who survive in Anjou . It was founded around 1209 by Giraud III Berlay, seigneur of Montreuil-Bellay who gave the Grandmont religious the forests near Cizay. It was at this time that the church, dedicated to Our Lady, was built. Classified as a historical monument in 1963, it is remarkable for the size of its nave and the simplicity of its architecture. Adjacent to the cemetery passage, which is also a listed cemetery, the chapter house, whose construction, contemporary with that of the church, is one of the most harmonious of Grandmontane architecture. In the 17th century, a large stone altarpiece was erected above the main altar of the chapel, thanks to the talent of the Manceau sculptor Pierre Biardeau. The place is still imprecise of the memory of the writer Jean de La Brète who lived there and wrote his entire work.
Access: 8kms south of Saumur: from the Saumur ring road, take the road to Cholet/ Doué la Fontaine (D960). At the third roundabout, immediately turn right towards Cizay-La-Madeleine. At the exit of the hamlet of Igné, take the red bridge on your left. At 200m, immediately after a small wood, an alley of lime trees on your left leads to the priory of Breuil-Bellay.