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Le ciel jusqu’aux racines Marie Bovo
Atlantic is pleased to present Marie Bovo’s first exhibition in Benin, Le ciel jusqu’aux racines, opening on September 5, 2026.
The exhibition grew out of the artist’s residency in Benin in April 2025, organized by the Institut français as part of the Inspiration Benin – At the Heart of African Worlds programme, in partnership with Atlantic Art Space.
For Le ciel jusqu’aux racines, Marie Bovo will present a new body of work comprising around thirty unique, previously unseen illuminations, created in the wake of this experience.
Marie Bovo, Illumination (Air bleu au deux serpents enlacés au bois sacré de Kpassé), 2025, Photographic print on Hahnemühle paper and illuminations using Sennelier inks and watercolours, 30,5 x 23 cm
Le ciel jusqu’aux racines exhibition emerged from my stay in Benin in April 2025, organized by the Institut français as part of the Inspiration Benin residency, in partnership with Atlantic Art Space. In Benin, the project took the form of photographic research into the figure of the Vodun forests, and into the spirituality rooted in these chosen sites, but equally present in other places not officially designated as sacred.The photographs were taken during full-moon nights, at dusk and in the early morning, in three forests: the sacred Kpassé Forest in Ouidah, the relic forest of Niaouli in the commune of Allada, and the flooded forest of Lokoli in the commune of Zogbodomey.
Marie Bovo, Illumination (Améthyste scintillante, à l’arbre flèche, forêt de Lokoli, 2025, Photographic print on Hahnemühle paper and illuminations using Sennelier inks and watercolours, 34,9 x 26,4 cm
Vodun spirituality is an ecological poetics in action, which might be understood as a web of correspondences, a science of relationships between human beings and everything that comes into being within the forest. Yet the Spirits can also be frightening. I remember my first night in the forest, paralyzed by lightning and torrential rain. Through laughter and fear, these deities or spirits gave substance to an ethic of relating to the living world.
Marie Bovo, Illumination (Or étale aux nénuphars pensifs, forêt de Lokoli), 2025, Photographic print on Hahnemühle paper and illuminations using Sennelier inks and watercolours, 30,5 x 23 cm
These are the forests that we encounter again in the exhibition at Atlantic Art Space. In the meantime, a year will have passed. I will have returned to Marseille, while the Vodun forests will have remained with me, first as luminous traces on silver negatives, then as sheets of paper hanging on the walls of my studio. At the crossroads of places and times, the forests were immersed in watercolor and colored inks, subjected to the caresses and assaults of the brush, the splashes of pigment, the flow of water. From that moment on, photography became a silent text illuminated by colored pigments.Illuminated, brightened, darkened, plunged into shadow, the Vodun forests unfolded their infra-actions like active images, activating presences and absences, thoughts, memories, ethical and formal imaginaries , the point of view of the grasses, the point of life of the bats.
- Marie Bovo, 2026
Marie Bovo, Illumination (Pluie verte aux lianes tressées, forêt de Lokoli), 2025, Photographic print on Hahnemühle paper and illuminations using Sennelier inks and watercolours, 30,5 x 23 cm
Marie Bovo, Illumination (Bleu psychotrope à la liane de transe), 2025, Photographic print on Hahnemühle paper and illuminations using Sennelier inks and watercolours, 65 x 51 cm
Marie Bovo, Illumination (Brun rivière aux feuilles de l’esprit, forêt de Lokoli), 2025, Photographic print on Hahnemühle paper and illuminations using Sennelier inks and watercolours, 36,1 x 27,4 cm
Marie Bovo, Illumination (Émeraude liquide aux eaux du ciel, forêt de Niaouli), 2025, Photographic print on Hahnemühle paper and illuminations using Sennelier inks and watercolours, 34,9 x 26,4 cm
Marie Bovo, Illumination (Gris peau à la nature réarmée, bois sacré de Kpassé), 2025, Photographic print on Hahnemühle paper and illuminations using Sennelier inks and watercolours, 36,1 x 27,4 cm
Marie Bovo, Illumination (Jaune nuit au python lové, forêt de Lokoli), 2025, Photographic print on Hahnemühle paper and illuminations using Sennelier inks and watercolours, 33,5 x 25 cm
Marie Bovo, Illumination (Eau pourpre aux herbes ondoyantes, forêt de Lokoli, 2025, Photographic print on Hahnemühle paper and illuminations using Sennelier inks and watercolours, 34,9 x 26,4 cm
Marie Bovo, Illumination (Jaune rivière au bois flotté, forêt de Lokoli), 2025, Photographic print on Hahnemühle paper and illuminations using Sennelier inks and watercolours, 30,5 x 23 cm
Inspiration Bénin – At the Heart of the African Worlds is a residency programme organised by the French Embassy in Benin, in partnership with MansA, the Maison des Mondes Africains in Paris and the ADAC, and operated by the Institut Français in Benin.
More information: Inspiration Bénin – At the Heart of the African Worlds
