Temporary exhibitions
At the Jardins des Martels, it’s not only floral design that’s in the spotlight!
To enhance your visual experience, we regularly invite local artists to exhibit their work outside gallery walls, in the heart of our park.
So you can admire their original artwork as you wander round the gardens.
2024: Philippe Jobard makes colors and hearts vibrate
Two balancing passions
As a child, little Philippe is shy, he has difficulty expressing himself, and his mother worries about it. At eight years old, she enrolled him in a painting class. This form of expression pleases him instantly…
Later, however, he did not want to make it an exclusive passion: he went to study medicine in Paris. In the second year of college, he also took the Fine Arts competition. As he reaches the end of the selection process, the jury, convinced by his work, nevertheless fails him: not wanting to devote himself strictly to pictorial art is fatal to him... No matter! Philippe traces his own path, made of creation, but also of the love of his cardiology patients, who invite him on “a new journey every half hour”. “I see my two activities like a catamaran: there are two hulls, and like that, it’s stable; one balances the other. » His dual passion allows him to take on the role of observer, mirroring society.
The call of light
His childhood in Versailles, then his boarding school in Strasbourg and a stint in Burgundy where he inherited a house, left him with an aftertaste of grayness that did not suit him. As a development worker sent to Dakar, he discovered Senegalese fire, a source of multiple inspirations. When he returned to France, the southern sun was a revelation: he settled in Montpellier, where he had lived since 1995. He had found his light.
Color above all else
The eternal subject of Philippe Jobard’s paintings is color; the landscapes are only pretexts, magnificent visual backgrounds: “What amuses me is trying to make the colors vibrate next to each other, by twisting them or superimposing them. »
Philippe systematically blackens his frames to fill in the grain of the canvas and avoid white edges. From a photo or his memory, he takes chalk, sketches a score, and all his variations start from there. One of the exercises he does is to limit the colors (3 or 4 maximum): he works on them by mixing them, and varying them, starting with the darkest; this forced limitation of colors makes it possible to give more unity to a painting and to avoid this “parrot” side that it hates!
Oil and the knife: the intensity of a caress
“Oil is a rich material, whose texture I like; and the color is much more intense than with acrylic! », enthuses Philippe, who has tested numerous techniques. He works his oils until the color is shimmering, so that it vibrates more. He sometimes leaves it overnight to rework the dough the next day, when it has hardened a little and he can play with different consistencies. In the same way, he does not hesitate to sand certain parts and repaint over them until he obtains the desired result.
“Working with a knife is very pleasant: it’s a bit like a caress. What matters is the angle of the knife. It can be very gentle, if we are tangential to the surface, but we can scratch, too. On the palette, you can mix the colors without them blending completely: it's a little irregular, and then you get surprises when you spread it... and surprises are always nice! »
Emulation and sharing, in constant experimentation
Philippe Jobard willingly lets himself be inspired by his peers. He loves Nicolas de Staël, another painter crazy about color who also fell in love with the light of the South, but also Serge Poliakoff, with his colored spots; or even Bernard Cathelin, abstract artist inhabited by his maternal Drôme…
In perpetual research, Philippe refuses to confine himself to a technique or to lock himself into a style. The work of others nourishes his own: observing it maintains his desire to create and his desire to experiment with new things. He would like nothing more than to paint with them! This is also what he does with his painter-architect friend Christophe Marmey, himself fond of superpositions of colors and textures. Because according to him, art should not isolate, but unite.
He does not cling to his works. Above all, he wants to share them: “The paintings are like children: when they leave, that’s it, the work is done. It’s great for them to go and chat with other people! An artist is truly an artist when he confronts others. »
To admire the works of Philippe Jobard :
L’Atelier Jobard, in Montpellier and on FB :
2024: Dimikev - Wood and metal sculptures
Sparks, flying chips, lightning and dust adorn the atmosphere in the workshop.
The material is transformed, valued and takes on a second life.
The wood hollows out, the gestures must be precise and thoughtful in a presence that solicits confidence.
A perilous discovery which gives wood a new body.
Metal forms and assembles in space with great freedom.
All these forgotten treasures, old objects, machines, tools, are recycled to generate new ideas.
From silent gouges and mallets, he moved on to the chainsaw and grinder which transports him into a screaming meditation, from which the inspiration that flows through him can instantly flow.
A chaos that leads to silence marking the birth of a new work.
Animal, plant, organic, cosmic, fantastic, imaginary, dreamlike, geometric, all these universes intertwine and nourish his creativity as well as his desire to invite people to dream and escape from the known...
Visit the Dimikev website:
2024: Julie Frilley - Earthen sculptures
Plastic ceramist “sculpturist*”
*Sculpturist: She invented this term to define herself and evoke her work. Sometimes classic words lack dynamism or are simply boring. This one, on the other hand, evokes power, solidity, because sculpture requires physical and energetic commitment. In her job, she lifts, moves, manipulates kilograms, tons of materials!
That's why she merged the terms "sculpture" and "bodybuilder"... and it also gives her a touch of humor! Trained in Terre et Pierre sculpture in Gard in 2000, she chose Ariège as a terrain to develop her artistic expression. His main material is stoneware in various forms, although metal is starting to gain ground in his designs.
Passionate about unusual places and industrial wastelands swallowed up by nature, she unearths metal treasures in abandoned factories or from scrap dealers. She enjoys playing with contrasts: the roughness of raw chamotte, the smoothness, the texture, the colored slips, the rusty, jagged metal...
All his works are unique pieces, sculpted and carved from the mass. The clays she uses are highly chamotted, allowing her to make large pieces which she fires in a single firing at 1250 degrees, making them resistant to frost.
Visit Julie Frilley’s website:
2023 : Betty Damestoy: a very " blue flower " artist
Betty's double passion ? Plants and the cyanotype.
This is a photographic printing technique dating from the first half of the 19th century and making it possible to obtain a negative copy of an object on a " Prussian blue " background, also called " cyan blue ", a pigment of incomparable depth.
Exposing the photo to the sun reveals the immaculate image on the intense blue support. It was an English scientist, John Frederick William Herschel, who accidentally discovered the photosensitive properties of the iron salts contained in the famous Prussian blue (ultraviolet sensitivity).
Between cyanotype and botany, it's an old love story !
Anna Atkins, British botanist and friend of John Herschel, very quickly became interested in this process, which she widely used and helped to make known through her work (her works are veritable herbaria).
Betty, for her part, makes her prints on fabric to bring together photography and textiles, and give her works a very particular grain. Sheltered from the light, she coats her fabric with a photosensitive mixture before depositing the plants she wishes to magnify; a glass plate holds the whole thing together. Then comes the moment of "insolation", i.e. exposure to light to react the photosensitive compound. Finally, it is the "revelation", to prevent the image from ending up yellowing and darkening: successive vinegar water baths, until the water is clear.
Come and discover Betty's works, bursting with poetry !
2022 : Christophe Charlet et Bertrand Mac Gaw : MetaFlower
Metaflower est la rencontre d'un photographe et d'un peintre unis par le désir de magnifier la beauté de ce lieu unique que sont les Jardins des Martels, sous la forme d'un « question-réponse ».
Christophe en a sillonné tous ses contours trois saisons durant, capturant, au plus près, la vie fascinante qui s'y déroule, puis laissant à Bertrand le soin de proposer une extrapolation, tantôt poétique, tantôt symboliste, de ses compositions. S'est ainsi développé un imaginaire associé à une vie souvent insoupçonnée, un environnement que nous admirons souvent à distance humaine.
Les deux artistes vous proposent de vous y attarder et, qui sait, de rêver un peu.
Christophe Charlet :
Originaire du Nord de la France, je démarre la photographie en autodidacte 1997. La photo me suivra tout au long de ma vie sans prendre la place d’activité principale. Je suis arrivé dans le Sud Ouest en 2002 et je me suis dirigé vers la carrière de formateur en Ressources Humaines. C’est à l’aube de ma retraite que je me professionnalise comme photographe après une formation en école.
Éclectique, tous les sujets à photographier m’intéressent quand je suis inspiré.
Curieux de tous les Arts, j’aime associer les disciplines entre elles.
C’est dans ce cadre que j’organise, en 2022, conjointement, ma première exposition aux Jardins des Martels.
Bertrand Mac Gaw :
Artiste-peintre depuis 1999, toulousain d’adoption depuis 10 ans, proche du mouvement symboliste, Bertrand Mac Gaw s’est intéressé à tous les sujets intemporels de la condition humaine. Sa capacité à les traduire à travers une large palette de techniques et de styles, flirtant parfois avec la bande dessinée, fait de cet homme un créateur de son temps. Le concept de Metaflower est pour lui une nouvelle manière de parler de l’Homme à travers le végétal et la faune qui l’accompagne.
2022 : Pierre Treilhes exhibits his metal sculptures
From May 8 to September 30, Pierre Treilhes plunges us into his universe.
For Pierre Treilhes, art is a childhood wonder that very often leads him to dress the present in the colors of the past, as many of his themes indicate: rural scenes, fabulous animals, mythical characters.
The sculpture by diversion of objects by Pierre Treilhes is to the sculpture of Greek inspiration what the caricature is to the portrait Born of a combination inspired in the very flow of a work and taking off on a simple jumble of scrap metal , it obtains the best of effects with the minimum of means, transforming reality with enough symbolic charge for it to be called figurative and not narrative.
2021 : Ceramists and gardens, a dialogue.
From May 8 to September 30, 2021, five ceramists inspired by the place will exhibit in the lush greenery of the Gardens.
Each in his personal style, Sébastien Barrère, Chloé Courbet, Sébastien de Groot, Johanna Grothendieck and Mathieu Hettema have created and exhibit their pieces where material, form, fantastic or more traditional universe, inhabit the site and make you live discoveries over the course of your walk.
They then invite you to visit their workshops located around in order to continue your journey according to your affinities.
Enjoy your visit and discoveries !
2019 : Yoann Bonhoure : wood carvings
"Yoann's sculptures invite the visitor to slow down, observe, listen, feel. In a world where everything is going faster and faster, it has become important to find places and moments where we can stop and be silent . "
A graduate of the Beaux-Arts in Toulouse in 2011, Yoann then perfected himself in woodworking and combined artisanal and creative practice. Today he feels the need to express himself more with sculpture, as if there had been maturation. Each work he creates is born from an idea, an intuition or a message to convey. There is a need to reconnect with the Earth, with nature, and with oneself. This becomes essential to preserve a certain harmony between humans and their environment.
"There is nothing fancy about what I'm trying to create, otherwise I wouldn't. I want to convey a positive, simple and touching message."
Here is what drives the creation of her sculptures, as well as a sensitivity for wood, a noble and living material that resonates with itself through this communion with nature.
2018 : Xavier Saggesi & Bulle d'oz : sculptures and totems
Xavier develops his activity by proposing projects to “scenograph” public or private spaces with sculptures specially designed and produced according to the places (Parks and Gardens). Its objective: to surprise the public, to amaze them and to trigger emotion and discussion. He also works on sensory spaces, in particular for establishments for disabled adults. The concept exists, of course, but everything that is offered is plastic! He, for equivalent budgets, wants to bring magic, trigger emotion and awaken the senses with noble and natural materials.
The sculptures exhibited in the Jardin des Martels will for the most part be designed for the spaces they will come to inhabit.
2017 : Pierre Treilhes : metal sculptures
First a painter, Pierre Treilhes gradually lets himself be invited by the world of sculpture in which he will become the master of life for abandoned objects.
Pierre Treilhes' creations are born from old abandoned, used, or even rusty tools.
He is a talented artist who subjects metals to the torment of fire, so that in the embers and sparks, works that are sometimes poetic and peaceful, sometimes full of ardor, sometimes full of ardor, where the movement involves the viewer in a relationship where surprise gives way. not to admiration.
The unpredictable is organized under his hand, arranges with patience, is organized to offer a magical composition whose final bouquet is access to beauty.
2016 : Marlie Kentish Barnes : Sculptures
These sculptures represent as always a testimony of my connection with the stone, as well as with the physical and emotional world around and inside me. They stem from the enormous pleasure I experience during creative expression.
In some sculptures, I started to integrate found objects and sometimes engraved writings, thus transporting the work to another dimension - that of tales and dreams. At the same time, a funny keyhole or a church window, for example, may be at the origin of the work.
I hope that these sculptures will enchant visitors during their walks around these magnificent Jardins des Martels.
2015 : Albi pottery
Turn the clayey earth to give life to a shape and find the color that will highlight it, sublimate it. It is a team which gives its soul to Clair de Terre, an expertise, the desire every day to do well, and to learn again and again from this rich profession and which obliges you to remain humble in front of the discoveries of the technique.
2014 : Atmosfleur - Lya Marino
Creators of aesthetic atmospheres, Lya and Laurent Marino are inspired by the surrounding nature, its seasons, its shapes and its colors. In constant research, they have the ability in their work to capture the various textures and patterns that plant and mineral materials offer us. It is thanks to this that Atmosfleur Creations offers decorations for gardens but also for interiors, decorations for your events, store facades, festival decoration ...
The 2014 exhibition was designed so that the works of Atmosfleur Creations fit into the garden, the different creations are married to nature throughout the season giving the impression that they were an integral part of the landscape. . By visiting the Jardin des Martels in 2014, you were able to discover the plant paintings and interior lotus creations by Lya Marino on display at the garden reception. And also the exterior works installed on the garden tour, wire spheres, woven spheres, nests in the trees, breezes seen near the pond, and other surprises...
