Theophane
Catelli
I was born in 2000 in Toulon and grew up in Les Issambres, a village surrounded by nature, between forest and coastline, in the south of France. My parents passed on their love for creation and the living world, and from a young age, I was always making, tinkering, and experimenting.
It was in high school that I began questioning painting, while attending workshops led by the artist
Emma Picq Charvet. I then took part in several exhibitions and residencies in Saint-Raphaël. At the same time, I worked for several years in my family’s business, Le Loft Pédagogique, an educational and social third place, where I progressed from volunteer to project manager and artistic pedagogy instructor.
I later joined the Villa Arson in Nice. During my studies, I had the opportunity to work as an assistant to the Korean artist Kyo Kim for the exhibition The Fire Next Time at Villa Arson, on his piece Digital Romanticism, and later to Neil Clement in Glasgow for the Glasgow International. As part of the festival, I also assisted Nicole-Antonia Spagnola, a Los Angeles-based artist exhibited by Ivory Tars. While there, I collaborated with several galleries and independent spaces, such as Ivory Tars, CENTO, A-M-G5, Broadside Space, and Govan Project Space.
I conceive my work as a territory to be explored, a sensory space where darkness, constrained volumes, and scattered clues serve as markers of an immersive experience. Working between installation, painting, and sculpted objects, I strive to create environments that are not merely observed but must be traversed, felt, and deciphered.
My approach questions perception and storytelling by blurring the boundaries between the tangible and the fictional, drawing from the fantastic, fantasy, and science fiction. Every element of my installations is meticulously crafted, affirming a commitment to craftsmanship as a fundamental gesture. I see my works as fragments of a constantly evolving narrative, where the spectator becomes a participant, a wanderer in search of meaning.
Creating artifacts is an integral part of this process. A collector at heart, I am fascinated by how objects carry stories, layers of memory, and imagination. My works function as artifacts from a fictional world, almost like “stuff” to collect in an RPG. Each piece becomes a relic, a remnant to be claimed, extending the experience beyond the installation itself.
Darkness, ever-present, does not conceal but reveals, demanding heightened attention. The space I construct is meant to be enigmatic, sometimes oppressive, using discomfort as a driving force for immersion. I do not seek to reassure but to offer an experience where disorientation becomes an initiatory passage—an alteration of reality that challenges our relationship with the unknown.
Between reverie and nightmare, between remnants and invention, I seek to provoke a shift. Once the experience is over, only traces remain—diffuse sensations and the certainty that the explored space continues to exist somewhere, within the memory of the body and the imagination.