philippa motte
in consolation
The gallery is pleased to host this tribute to Philippa Motte, trainer and peer support specialist in mental health care services and in the corporate sector, author, and artist, conceived by Éric Waroquet, a systemic therapist, co-founder, and director of Epsilon Melia.
The exhibition Pour Consolation was born from the shock Éric Waroquet experienced upon reading Philippa Motte’s memoir And it is I who is locked away! (Et c’est moi qu’on enferme, Stock, 2025). « I did not simply read this book; I was struck by it head-on. Its intensity, its beauty, its ability to make the reader experience what is usually reduced to words - crisis, mania, delusion, disorder, confinement - deeply moved me. What do these terms really convey about what happens when one slips beyond reality? ».
The title of the exhibition, “For Consolation”, emerged as a natural choice. Far from suggesting a superficial comfort or a form of complacency that would conceal pain, shame, or confinement, consolation is understood here as an active, profound, and transformative force.
For Philippa Motte, drawing is a bulwark against chaos, an exercise in pure presence, and a life-saving ritual. While her writing seeks to shape language and make experience communicable, her drawing operates on an entirely different plane: it does not explain, it heals. Against deep, dark fields of color, networks of veins emerge with striking intensity; nothing is decorative, everything is necessary. Here, black is not synonymous with night, but rather the generative space from which life arises.
The exhibition is accompanied by a panel discussion, “Creating to Stay Alive”, featuring Philippa Motte, Éric Waroquet, and Christian Berst on June 17th at 6:00 pm, as well as a reading of excerpts from the artist’s memoir by Claire Nebout on Saturday, June 20th at 5:00 pm.
Philippa Motte will be present at the gallery on Saturday 20th and Sunday 21st of June from 2:00 pm to 6:00 pm.
This tribute is organized in partnership with Epsilon Melia.
A 60-page bilingual booklet featuring a text by Éric Waroquet has been published on the occasion of the exhibition.
