Tu vas me manquer

23 January – 18 February 2026

Group Show

Gabrielle Alexandre, Clémence Bruno, Sévérina Ianakieva

Galerie Ars Longa

As the exhibition takes shape, the three friends and artists decide to leave, to depart from their territory or to return to it. Departure is the starting point of the exhibition; the gallery space becomes a place of reunion. Tu vas me manquer (I’ll miss you) speaks to each of us. To what we leave behind when we go. This trio show is a way of reconnecting or reconciling departure, of creating a home together.

For Gabrielle, “home” evokes more our land, the village, the outdoor space extending around the house. The shortcuts we know by heart that lead us there, hiding from others, from their gaze among the fir trees—because there are always eyes at the windows—listening attentively to the rain and the rustling of the leaves. It means imagining a furtive presence at the sound of a crackling branch, inventing objects that bear witness to the passage to another world from sap, snail shells, or bark. It is a place where women and fairies gather to think about other possibilities. The “house” unfolds as a space for healing. Inside it, Gabrielle stages fictional female characters from a rural universe that oscillates between Twin Peaks and the tales and legends of Franche-Comté. Inspired by the character of the Log Lady from David Lynch’s series, the women appear as the guardians of their territory, mysterious and cunning, forging bonds between themselves—whether as friends or lovers—and protecting the landscape that surrounds them.

For Clémence, home is a sheltered place, surrounded by four walls. It is a place of welcome and rest, where different objects accumulate and interact with each other, becoming the starting point for a narrative. Home is a unique territory where friendships are forged and cemented. It is through encounters within the home that relationships rooted in everyday life are formed. Messy underwear, dirty dishes, and scattered shoes become gateways, bearing witness to shared confidences and tenderness. Clémence does not see this space as functional, its primary function being not efficiency, but its capacity to welcome, bring people together, and foster friendship. When it came time to move, the question arose: how to leave when all of this cannot be taken with you? That is why, just like the objects that have been given and collected, painting is there to bridge the gap between inside and outside, to freeze and replay the interior of the house ad infinitum so that you can leave without crying too much.

For Sévérina, painting is a way of belonging, of anchoring herself in the world. Like Baba Yaga’s izba, a house on chicken legs, the home becomes a sanctuary for the known and the seen, a transitional space in constant motion. A place to lay down her grief and her love. She collects images of her friends’ eyes, her family, and fluorescent landscapes. Sévérina chases away the haunting image of the house of a fantasized life in Bulgaria from her dreams. The house is neither a physical place nor filled with real people: the walls are constantly shifting, and its inhabitants become symbols of a life lived on the fly. This exhibition comes after a somewhat forced but long-awaited return to her roots and finally to her real home, empty of all her identity and memories. Far from her friends, who until then had been her only notion of family, she realized the importance of cherishing those who evolve alongside us. Her work is accompanied by the thoughts of researcher Donna Haraway on the question of the link between companion species and humans, especially on the question of street animals (pigeons, dogs, cats, and other co-evolving species inhabiting urban and desacralized streets). How can we build a home when we don’t really have a home, no place to permanently store relics and talismans, no place to settle down? This is where painting takes on its meaning: it is through painting that she immortalizes space and sanctifies the symbols she encounters.

viewing room