In this second one-person show at the gallery, the American artist Jan Groover presents some new and unpublished works, which belong to probably the most important strand of her work: the still lifes.

The photographs show common household objects, worn by time: taps, kitchen utensils and pots, placed next to dried leaves and crumpled cloth. Every subtle nuance of light and shade is enhanced by the platinum palladium printing process.

Once again the artist studies the significance of the objects at the moment the picture is taken, immersed in a space determined by planes and particular viewpoints. Jan told me recently: “I look at the object – it can be a leaf, a pot or whatever – until it disappears, and just the picture is left. At that moment the photograph comes into being”.

Playing on the unlikely juxtaposition of a satin cloth and an old tap , a dry leaf and dark velvet, her research reveals ever more the “melancolie moderne”, as the critic Jean-François Chevrier says of her works. She shows a kind of existential restlessness suggested by a fragile equilibrium, by the silence of the objects and the opacity of the materials.

At the exhibition, alongside these new works, there are also some rare black and white and colour photographs from the eighties which highlight the lively continuity of her research, despite her experimentations. Through colour, the artist’s universe becomes more pictorial, dominated by light and reflection but still retains that formal strength which distinguishes all her work.