French photographer Marie Quéau has opened her latest exhibition titled "Fury" at LE BAL in Paris, showcasing a compelling project she developed over the past two years. Quéau is the winner of the 5th edition of the LE BAL/ADAGP Award for Young Creation, and this exhibition represents the culmination of her award-winning work.

Quéau's creative process begins with research notebooks that serve as the foundation for all her work. These journals overflow with images, including snapshots she takes during scouting trips and illustrations she obsessively collects from second-hand books and magazines, particularly those related to history, art, and natural science. She assembles, glues, and intertwines these materials across the pages, creating what she describes as a "visual hum" that guides her narrative development.

The photographer constructs her worlds from fragments of reality, absorbing these elements to create works that exist somewhere between documentary and fiction. At LE BAL, visitors enter the world she calls "Fury," named after the planet Fury-161 from the third Alien film where Ripley's ship crashes. Like that fictional scenario, visitors find themselves in an unfamiliar realm, guided by curiosity mixed with unease.

The exhibition features a mysterious constellation of black-and-white prints, wallpapers, videograms, and projections. The displayed works include masked faces, figures dressed in motion-capture suits, body parts coated in gel, and flames arranged on the ground as the only color images. These pieces of varied materials are scattered without apparent order and displayed in semi-darkness, forming their own organic system without wall labels to disrupt the immersive experience.

A projection at the entrance provides visitors with essential clues about the exhibition's concept. "Fury" references fury rooms, commercial spaces where people can rent time to destroy objects in cathartic gestures. The projection alternates between jittery surveillance footage from these rooms and moments of weightlessness, showing motionless bodies floating in water while regulating their breathing to the hypnotic rhythm of a voice counting minutes.

Quéau explores extreme states that the body willingly endures, including fury rooms, static apnea, and stunt performers coated in fire-retardant gel walking through flames. The human body is central to her artistic practice, a focus that originated from her assigned work for sports magazines before evolving into a distinctly artistic approach. "I wanted to highlight a philosophy of the body, something that touches on its limits, a fictional approach rather than a biological study of sport," she explains.

A solarized image of a body at the edge of a window perfectly captures the concept of thresholds that runs throughout her work. This represents the tension of wavering, the moment when the body reaches its limit and only the mind remains as a refuge through which chaos, risk, and fear can be controlled. Tight framings echo what she describes as "a state of absence from the world," creating both suffocating and soothing sensations of retreat into oneself.

As visitors wander through the twists and turns of "Fury," they seem to hold their breath, an experience that may reflect contemporary life itself. The exhibition is accompanied by a publication created in collaboration with graphic designer Roger Willems from Roma Publications. Quéau's preference for accumulation reappears in the publication's shimmering paper effect, demonstrating the same precision she applies to the materiality of images.

Historian Guillaume Blanc-Marianne contributes a text that offers a nuanced exploration of the poetic enigma represented by this body of work. "Fury" ultimately represents Marie Quéau's unique artistic world, and according to critics, that is precisely where its beauty lies. The exhibition continues to draw visitors interested in contemporary photography's intersection with themes of physical limits and psychological states.