#93

 

Florian Mermin
LA ROSE ET L’ARAIGNÉE
Solo show
15/03 - 23/05/2026
opening Sunday 15/03, 3pm - 7pm

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For his first solo exhibition at 22.48 m², Florian Mermin presents a collection of recent and striking works from the last few years, some of which continue his exploration of the plant and animal worlds and their many metamorphoses.

With LA ROSE ET L’ARAIGNÉE (The Rose and the Spider), the artist has created an immersive installation, a space to be traversed where sculpture, painting, perfume, and voice weave a sensitive narrative.

The exhibition unfolds like the evocation of a castle setting, combining soft lighting, deep velvet, and absorbent materials. A rose fragrance wafts through the air and the recitation of a poem, giving voice to both the rose and the spider, accompanies visitors as they wander through the space.

The paintings composed of dried plants, bronze sculptures, and ceramics establish an intimate dialogue between organic fragility and mineral permanence. The whole creates a baroque space, not in the sense of being overloaded, but rather as the expressive intensity of a tension between life and death.

For Florian Mermin, the rose is never purely ornamental: it embodies the cycle from blossoming to decay. The spider, meanwhile, represents the web, the relationship, the fragile but tenacious link between kingdoms. Together, they form a symbolic ecotone — a place of passage and encounter between species.

In this space filled with hybrid objects—vases without flowers, candleholders arising from the walls, organic shapes evoking both relics and traps — the space is transformed into a fragrant still life, “a sensual and funereal universe, on the border between the animal, the vegetable and the sacred, reminiscent of the sometimes chilling tales of childhood” (Frédéric Legros). A text by Sabrina Silamo will accompany the exhibition.

 

Florian Mermin graduated with honors from the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 2015. His works have been shown in numerous institutions such as the Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature, the Grande Halle de la Villette in Paris, the Château de Fontainebleau, the Musée Internationale de la Parfumerie in Grasse, the Palais Idéal du Facteur Cheval in Hauterives, the Centre d'art contemporain Passerelle in Brest... and in international exhibitions such as the Lyon Biennale in France, the Museo Palazzo di Mocenigo in Venice, and the Castello di Lajone in Quattordio, Italy. The recipient of numerous awards, his works are featured in public collections including those of the International Perfume Museum in Grasse, the Roybet Fould Museum in Courbevoie, the FRAC Nouvelle Aquitaine MECA in Bordeaux, the FDAC in Lot and Essonne, and the Collection of the Palais Idéal du Facteur Cheval in Hauterives.

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PRESS RELEASE

 

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