La Madeleine de Proust
An exhibition of contemporary painting inspired by the involuntary memory of Proust's madeleine

At the heart of this exhibition lies a fleeting, transformative moment famously captured in Marcel Proust’s taste of a madeleine dipped in herbal tea. This sudden spark of involuntary memory opens a hidden, interior world beyond time, logic, or conscious thought.

The artists in this exhibition understand that creation often arises not from intention or mastery, but from accident, intuition, and surrender. Like Proust, they know that the smallest stimulus - a colour, a texture, a brushstroke, can trigger a deeper recognition, releasing something wild, intangible, and free.

Philip Guston suggested that true painting is only possible when all influences - teachers, history, friends, even the artist’s ego, have left the studio. In that absence, thinking is suspended, and creation may happen, emerging from a self liberated space within.

La Madeleine de Proust invites viewers into this fragile space of uncanny recognition. Just as a taste can summon the past, so a painting can carry one beyond explanation into the realm of experiencing, revelation dawning out of the blue.