Empreintes: from Gesture to Language

For its summer exhibition, Galerie Les Filles du Calvaire invites curator Pierre El Khoury to present “Empreintes: from Gesture to Language”, bringing together the work of Alexandre Fandard, Giovanni Leonardo Bassan, and Mariana Hahn.

The exhibition reflects on the imprint, not only as a physical trace left by contact, but as a gesture that marks the passage from movement to meaning. A footprint in sand, a hand on glass: these fleeting signs are more than remnants. They are evidence of pressure, of passage, of presence. When intentional, such gestures approach language and enter the realm of art.

The three featured artists engage with this moment when the body, in motion, leaves a trace, when expression begins not with representation, but with action. Their works privilege process over completion, and gesture over image. The imprint becomes not a leftover, but a generative force—what remains is not a relic, but a living form.

At the center of the space, a cube evokes the cave, not as background, but as origin. Alexandre Fandard paints without brushes, using his own body to strike, rub, and mark the surface. His practice, shaped by dance and movement, summons memory and loss through raw, physical engagement. The resulting works are scores of inner movement—records of presence, resistance, and transformation.
Giovanni Leonardo Bassan constructs his works through layering, erasure, and repetition. Blending painting and sculpture, his surfaces become fields of tension where identity is revealed and obscured. The body appears fragmented, elusive—held in a state of constant transformation. Hands, recurring across his practice, act as symbols of contact and creation: a visceral language etched into fabric, metal, or canvas.

Mariana Hahn’s work unfolds slowly, through ritual and repetition. Words, materials, and gestures recur like mantras. Using elements such as copper, salt, and hair, she creates subtle forms that bridge the visible and the invisible. Her process is less about depiction than emergence. From darkness to light, silence to form, her works trace an intimate and meditative language born of accumulation and insistence.

“Empreintes” suggests that the gesture is not only a means to an end, but the origin of appearance itself. The imprint is no longer simply a mark left behind—it is a beginning. A nascent form of expression, it links body to thought, matter to meaning.