Electric Prayer no. 1

Contemporary artist, author and lecturer Sabine Mirlesse’s work, which often evokes the immense power of nature, focuses on the individual’s relationship to the landscape which it inhabits. Even though photography is her primary medium, Mirlesse also incorporates sculpture, drawing, video, writing and found images into her conceptual practice, which often includes installations.

Mirlesse’s permanent work, Ofrenda, was inaugurated at Les Arques (a commune in the Lot department in southwestern France) in 2023. Prior to this (in 2022-2023) she was a laureate for the Mondes Nouveaux prize, awarded by the French Ministry of Culture, and created Crystalline Thresholds | Les Portes de Givre, an ephemeral installation of seven portals activated by ice storms at the top of the Puy de Dôme volcano (one of the youngest volcanoes in the Chaîne des Puys region of Massif Central in central France), in collaboration with the oldest weather observatory in France. This project was the subject of the artist’s monograph, published in April 2024 by Filigranes Editions, with essays by Bernard Blistène, Pierre Coutris, Nathalie Huret and Sabine Mirlesse.

In conjunction with Mirlesse’s 2025 solo exhibition, Instruments, at Andréhn-Schiptjenko in Stockholm, Mirlesse unveiled Ode to Measurement (the conceptual centrepiece for the entire exhibition), a bronze sculpture installation set in the waters off the island of Skeppsholmen, Stockholm.

Electric Prayer no. 1 was included in Mirlesse’s previous exhibition at Andréhn-Schiptjenko, the 2024 SABINE MIRLESSE - VOYANT, in Paris. In that exhibition Mirlesse, conceptually, sought to explore and communicate with nature through photography, sculpture and installation. In doing so, Mirlesse turned to the ancient and mysterious practice of geomancy.

Geomancy (from Late Greek *γεωμαντεία *geōmanteía) translates literally to ‘earth divination’. The term was originally used to define methods of divination that interpret geographic features, markings on the ground, or the patterns formed by soil, rocks, or sand. Geomancy was one of the forms of divination throughout Africa and Europe, particularly during the Middle Ages. However, it was classified by Christians as one of the seven ‘forbidden arts’, along with black magic, hydromancy, aeromancy, pyromancy, chiromancy and scapulimancy. The press release ahead of the 2024 Andréhn-Schiptjenko exhibition expanded on the theme of geomancy and its contemporary relevance for Mirlesse and her work:

Geomancy refers etymologically to the divination of the earth, but finds its practical manifestation in many forms, from dowsing to the way a handful of earth falls to the ground. In Voyant, which follows years of ephemeral monumental installations in and activated by the landscape, Sabine Mirlesse invites us to consider what the ‘mance’ of geomancy might mean - what it means to divine from the earth, or rather to read it.

Through a series of sculptures and photographs, all made with the reading of the landscape in mind, Mirlesse proposes a set of instruments to reflect on the oracular and the human desire to make manifest something that is otherwise invisible, through forms inspired by etymologies and poetics. The Cave is an Eye is a series of unique photographs, analogue chromogenic prints made from carefully selected marble cut to the exact size of the photographic paper. In the series Electric Prayer, strikes of lightning are transcribed in cast bronze embracing pieces of fulgurite.

Worth mentioning in this context is that fulgurites, commonly called ‘fossilised lightning’, are natural tubes, clumps, or masses of sinters, vitrified or fused soil, sand, rock, organic debris and other sediments that sometimes form when lightning discharges into the ground.

In his review of Voyant, (‘Sabine Mirlesse: Le Photoblog de Renaud Monfourny’, Les Inrocks, 17 June 2024), French photographer Renaud Monfourny (born 1962, founder of the newspaper Les Inrockuptibles as well as a renowned portraitist who, since 2009, has been reporting on cultural news by photographing its emerging and established players) wrote:

One could say that Sabine Mirlesse’s artistic approach has something to do with the mineral nature of the planet. For although she tackles this theme in an almost shamanic or cosmological way, she uses very terrestrial media! In Voyant – an exhibition running until 20 July at the Andréhn-Schiptjenko gallery, 56 rue Chapon, Paris 3 – visitors are captivated by magnificent colour photograms of marble slabs. Then there are sculptures and a hanging installation, which are just as poetic…

Provenance

Andréhn-Schiptjenko, Paris, SABINE MIRLESSE - VOYANT, 25 May - 20 July 2024.

Firestorm Foundation (acquired from the above).