Christelle Kahla at A.ROMY

Artist: Christelle Kahla

Exhibition title: Vapours of love

Venue: A.ROMY, Zurich, Switzerland

Date: December 12, 2021 – February 5, 2022

Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and A.ROMY, Zurich

Love can be as intoxicating as the vapours of spray paint.
A flammable and explosive bomb.

This is my dope.
L’amour et la peinture.
And I am a junkie addicted to the sweet euphoria their vapours give me, often leading to overdose.

I am erupting : with no time to realize it, I find myself breathless, suffocating, until I lose consciousness again.
I suffer yet I persist.

Colour, like pheromones, is attractive and exciting, sometimes repulsive.
Volatile but dangerous.
If your pheromones had a colour, they would irradiate the room and my eyes, until they burned and perforated my lungs.
Mes vaisseaux sanguins sont marqués, mes yeux secs et irrités.
Mes glandes lacrymales sont bouchées.
I can no longer cry.

The dust of colour spreads, in the smallest folds and interstices, only setting itself on defined and distended surfaces.
It caresses and then sticks to these soft, clean or sharp contours, like my lips used to cling to your skin.
The gesture is quick, immediate, sometimes trembling.
Its imperfections are sublimated.

The dopamine warms and warns but quickly fades.

Outside, an icy, uncontrollable wind blows.
Dead leaves fall in a hurry, like falling in love, immediately torn to the ground like broken hearts.

Soon everything disappears, only the glimmer of memories remains, immortalized and thrown, on canvas or glossy paper.
Lingerie, necklaces, chains entangled like diffuse and contradictory feelings.
These objects, which used to underline my curves, are now exhibits, leftovers, highlighted by the colour, bearing witness to a dissipating story.

The vapours of love evaporate like these words of love, formerly dancing on your mouth or slipping from your fingertips.
Now twisted, confused, becoming illegible like an ordinary tag on a wall.
Mutating into negations and suspension points, following one another endlessly, devoid of any meaning.

Game over.
Christelle Kahla