In her new solo show, entitled The Garden, Hilary Galbreaith presents episode two of her puppet science fiction series. In the world of New New Orleans, where a disease results in the transformation of certain humans into insects, a television competition takes place, in which the mutants are the protagonists. If in the first episode we observed the grotesque administrative difficulties dealt with by the mutants, the episode of The Garden stages a return to nature as an evasion from this dystopian world. This slow life appears at first to have stemmed from a desire for an alternative, reduced lifestyle ; it is, however, false, part of the reality television show that structures this world within a world. In the logic of the artist, the “garden” symbolizes the culture of fake, in its reproduction of nature with artifice.

Hilary Galbreaith prefers to work as an autodidact, learning new skills through tutorials she finds on the internet. Thus, she develops a pop, do-it-yourself aesthetic where customized odor diffusers stand alongside crocheted flowers. Her visual and conceptual influences are very American, such as those of Mike Kelley or Paul McCarthy. The artist is especially interested in fantasy and fantasy literature - this seems obvious in her narrations - from Poe to Pratchett, and dissects the horror film, citing Rosemary’s Baby and Night of the Living Dead. Considered as a whole, the exhibition is at once auditory, olfactory and participative, with furniture designed especially for the occasion. She thus creates what art historians refer to as a Gesamtkunstwerk.

Loïc Le Gall