The one hour documentary by Lifeworldimage (2016) offers a personal and intimate look at the early career of a young painter whose work – although known to only a few gallery patrons and friends – has already gained notice as unique, original and strangely inspiring.
And given the fullness of time, one hopes to see the promise of a deeply personal and extraordinary vision fulfilled – beyond even its own expectations – and we will remember… as we should… the enduring promise of art.
More often than not, documentary projects such as this one provide a rear-view look at an artist’s life work – assessing and discussing the accretion over time of vision and influences. When a City Dreams is a story of fate and destiny – a narrative journey of self- discovery experienced through the words and paintings of the painter Anne-Laure Djaballah
Although critical and financial success with her early work allowed the artist to adopt painting as a full-time project, her creative journey continues to be anything but secure. At the mercy of a gallery system and market economy where yesterday’s successes are often erased by the relentless pursuit of trend and fashion, Anne-Laure experiences the existential angst of a personal need to evolve her work set against the reality of the static demands of careerism in institutional art production.
In her work, Anne-Laure balances an intuitive vision with a more rigorous structured approach to produce works that are at once strangely foreign and hauntingly familiar. Much has been said about the influence of environment – the urban landscape in particular – on the early moments of her project. What will come of these intuitions over time remains not only to be seen – but felt in the deep mnemonic manner that the work itself seems to demand of its viewers.
