Estoy Aquí

Two women share a box. From the outside, they appear as a single body, split across the room from one edge to the other. The magician steps forward and, with a sharp gesture, cuts this illusion in half. Anaïs Fontanges pushes back against the imperatives of passivity imposed on female bodies—the way collective imagination dictates a role to inhabit, a form to fill. Through grotesque, stereotyped figures, she questions the extreme representations of enforced femininity. Her work seeks to unearth an inner voice buried beneath constructed, assigned, and endured images. “Estoy Aquí (I Am Here)” is whispered like a spell, repeated like a grounding ritual, a phrase of refuge murmured until what has been contained finally finds a way to be spoken, or shown. Drawing from a visual vocabulary of anatomical fragments, openings, and entrails, Fontanges makes visible what is usually silenced. To explore this interior is to begin a process of unveiling—at once ritual and intimate—intended to open a passage. This movement from inside to outside initiates a metamorphosis: a buried truth emerges, beyond the narrow limits of what is expected, admissible, or tolerated. It is a bid to loosen the grip, to slip free from constraint, to unfold anew. With a methodology that runs through her practice—collecting, archiving, recycling—Fontanges assembles images and objects in a kind of dorica castra. Her tragicomic figures and vignettes extend into space through a multi-level installation, arranged almost like a musical score. Here, representations of open bodies, nails, and beheadings disturb as much as they amuse. This ambiguity extends into the feminine figures she summons, such as Ayanna Williams (famous for her extraordinarily long nails), where a femininity pushed to its extreme tips into the monstrous. The stiletto heel, another recurring motif, also condenses this tension: an instrument of both power and constraint. In the artist’s imagination, it resonates with the nail-studded shoes of flamenco dance—percussive, rooted, theatrical—where heritage, spectacle, and the staging of the body converge. "Silencio: Aubade, Rocio & Pasacalle", a sound work by Thelma Capello, accompanies the exhibition. Field recordings, hammered with the obstinate rhythm of heels, draw a circular sonic landscape that follows a female figure’s movements between home and city. Capello entrusts Anaïs Fontanges with reading her own poems, sketching a transfigured city and an intimate reflection on the nature of silence. - Anaïs Fontanges Born in Portugal in 1998. Lives and works in Paris. Her work was recently presented in group exhibitions, including Changing Room at Soft Power (Berlin, 2025), THE DRAWER x VILLA NOAILLES at Hôtel des Arts TPM (Toulon, 2024), Hunters-Gatherers at Isaac Reina (Paris, 2024), Mur de dessins at Air de Paris (Romainville, 2024), Carreau, Trèfle, Pique, Poussière at Doc! (Paris, 2023), and I wait for u at Espace Nonono (Montreuil, 2023). Her drawings have also been published in the Under 25 issue of THE DRAWER (2024) and shown in L’épouvantail posé dans le champ, a performance by Audrey Danet as part of Chambre d’Écho for Lagon Revue at the Centre Pompidou (Paris, 2024).