Manon Wertenbroek envisions inhabited space, the body, and the artwork itself as paradoxical realms. The intimate and familiar setting is revealed as potentially isolating, oscillating between comfort and alienation, and inevitably confronting otherness. The artist’s dual gaze, both inward and outward, engages a reflection on how our resistance to the environment shapes our subjectivity. 

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From a structuralist approach, "Home" transcends the materiality of a shelter to become a space that is both physical and psychological. The "auto-psy" evokes a metaphorical post-mortem analysis, focusing less on physical death than on the deconstruction of the emotional and psychological structures we associate with our personal spaces. Wertenbroek’s work takes the form of a self-guided introspection, where the analysis of the body’s fragments, whether symbolic or real, leads to a process of repair. Each fragment functions as a space for care and attention, contributing to the reclamation of one’s own history. 

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Oscillating between a minimalism suggested by the monochromy of the reliefs and an erotic abstraction, the series exposes a palpable formal contradiction. The works, confined by their frame, sometimes subtly exceed their boundaries, threatening to abolish established limits. 

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Linked by an underlying organic cohesion that establishes human corporeality, Wertenbroek’s wall sculptures go beyond mere aesthetic fascination with anthropomorphic forms. The shapes, evoking pelvic cavities, ribs, and vertebrae, revolve around a concept akin to that of Deleuze and Guattari¹, who perceive the body not as a fixed entity but as an assemblage of elements in constant interaction, influenced by social and psychological forces. The works in the exhibition Home auto-psy thus act as embodiments of memories of sensitive experiences. 

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In the creative process, pieces of translucent leather salvaged from industrial surplus are stretched to envelop "bas-reliefs" made from metal frameworks covered with textiles and acrylic. The meticulous and sometimes laborious manipulation of the materials, allowing the forms to emerge, attests to the artist’s physical engagement, which she also perceives as an analogy to the tensions present in interpersonal relationships. 

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The accidental transparencies resulting from the pressure applied to the leather materialize the void, subtly revealing the underlying strata of the work. In The Eye and the Spirit (1964), Merleau-Ponty explores the relationship between visual perception and the body, asserting that our capacity to see constitutes a way of entering into contact with the world. Wertenbroek seems to invite the viewer to "touch" the interiority of the work through sight. By making the "transitional space"² between sculpture and the exterior palpable, she transcends the visual, offering an almost tactile sensory experience. 

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Capable of provoking visual and psychological discomfort, Wertenbroek proposes a somato-emotional integration, where physical sensations and emotions react and manifest in response to ambivalent stimuli. With the work Neck breeze, she captures the sensitivity of a breath falling on a nape, a contact between caress and threat, blurring the boundaries between the body and the other. These sensory reactions translate into a dialogue as intimate as it is intrusive between the body and its environment. 

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This exploration of the corporeal boundary aligns with Georges Bataille’s reflections on eroticism and death³, where fundamental desire inevitably confronts the dissolution of the body. Wertenbroek cultivates an aesthetic that is both seductive and unsettling, highlighting this duality. The works in the exhibition Home auto-psy evoke both attraction and repulsion, sensual pleasure and dread, thus revealing the inherent struggle of the body, where physical proximity collides with the fragility of the flesh. 

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In this context of vulnerability and desire, Wertenbroek explores the notion of care. Deepening this dimension, she even invites the future collector to establish an intimate tactile relationship with the works, suggesting that they regularly apply glycerin directly to the work to hydrate its skin. Through this gesture, she establishes a form of care that breathes organic life into the work and invites us to reflect on our responsibility towards others. 

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Like an organism in constant fluctuation, Wertenbroek does not represent a fixed body but a receptive one. The work Caution’s cave, warning waves, distinguished by its red hue and opacity, suggests an organ. Isolated in the exhibition space, it symbolically embodies an encapsulated, contained, and potentially dangerous sensation. Acting as a cathartic experience, the work recalls bodily tension, a signal of either rejection or uncontrollable passion. 

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Through the exhibition Home auto-psy, Wertenbroek explores our capacity for adaptation in the face of intimate upheavals. By focusing on defense mechanisms such as hypervigilance and dissociation, she reveals the body’s memory of our individual and collective experiences. This process of stripping down, both physical and psychological, transcends introspection and encourages us to reflect on our relationship with the environment while opening a critical dialogue with psychoanalytic concepts and historical contexts.

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— Maya Coline

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(translated from the original French text)

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¹ Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, Mille Plateaux: Capitalisme et Schizophrénie [A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia] (Paris: Les Éditions de Minuit, 1980).

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² The concept of the "transitional space" was developed by D. Winnicott in Playing and Reality (London: Tavistock Publications, 1971). It refers to an intermediate zone between the internal world of the subject and shared reality, where the individual engages in creative experience and appropriates reality, thus allowing the development of subjectivity.

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³ In L’Érotisme [Eroticism] (Paris: Les Éditions de Minuit, 1957), Georges Bataille emphasizes the interconnection between eros and death, asserting that desire is not merely a pursuit of pleasure, but involves a transgression that touches upon the boundaries of existence.