Léa Merlhiot, born in 1995, lives and works in Paris.
I explore the body as a space of memory, tension, and transformation through a multidisciplinary practice that blends painting, performance, video, installation, and ceramics.
I work particularly with the female body, questioning its roles, metamorphoses, and powers: what it reveals, what it conceals, what it withholds.
I draw on my personal history, as well as intimate and collective narratives, from reality to dreams, and even mythology. For me, the body becomes a repository of memory: I seek to transform recollection into tangible form.
- The body begins to sweat, and from this sweat, life must be given, mists brought forth -
In my performances, the body becomes a territory of experimentation; the costume, simultaneously adornment and protection, unfolds a poetics of the body where strength, vulnerability, and transformation intersect.
By revisiting tales and myths, I seek to reactivate the foundational narratives of our collective memory, revealing their silences and their erased voices.
I explore the body as a space of memory, tension, and transformation through a multidisciplinary practice that blends painting, performance, video, installation, and ceramics.
I work particularly with the female body, questioning its roles, metamorphoses, and powers: what it reveals, what it conceals, what it withholds.
I draw on my personal history, as well as intimate and collective narratives, from reality to dreams, and even mythology. For me, the body becomes a repository of memory: I seek to transform recollection into tangible form.
- The body begins to sweat, and from this sweat, life must be given, mists brought forth -
In my performances, the body becomes a territory of experimentation; the costume, simultaneously adornment and protection, unfolds a poetics of the body where strength, vulnerability, and transformation intersect.
By revisiting tales and myths, I seek to reactivate the foundational narratives of our collective memory, revealing their silences and their erased voices.
Her work has been exhibited in various venues across France, including the Ruth Bader Centre in Les Halles, Paris; the Remue Ménage Festival in Domont; the Les Luminescentes Festival in Valmondois; the Louis Simon Gallery and Espace Malve in Royan; and she has also participated in residencies at Halle Papin, Gare XP, and Shakirail in Paris. Most recently, she performed at the La Nuit des Fous event at the Louvre Museum in Paris, as well as at the opening night of "Le Sacre" at Le Gros Lot in Gennevilliers.
Upcoming projects with the LÀLÉ collective include an exhibition, a short film titled Les Larmes d’Alluminium (Aluminum Tears), and a performance and installation, "Guerrieuses" (Warriors), at DOC! in 2026.
Upcoming projects with the LÀLÉ collective include an exhibition, a short film titled Les Larmes d’Alluminium (Aluminum Tears), and a performance and installation, "Guerrieuses" (Warriors), at DOC! in 2026.
In 2023, she created the LÀLÉ collective, with Laura Caron, writer-acrobat and author's assistant to Valère Novarina. They carry out joint research and work hand in hand for 10 years in the pursuit of surrealist ideas. Multidisciplinary and undisciplined artist-researchers, they develop an approach where they bring together different mediums, painting and poetry, collective experiences, experimental films (cinepoem) and in-situ performances.
The same year, they mounted the exhibition POROSITÉ, which mixed painting and poetry and wrote their first manifesto together, defending the idea that surrealism is not dead; Their research is subsequently devoted to the fields of performance and improvisation as an opening to “heal reality with imagination”.
They practice drawing and automatic writing during their performance.
Their artistic approach is at the frontiers of the imagination: repairing reality by playing with chance.
The same year, they mounted the exhibition POROSITÉ, which mixed painting and poetry and wrote their first manifesto together, defending the idea that surrealism is not dead; Their research is subsequently devoted to the fields of performance and improvisation as an opening to “heal reality with imagination”.
They practice drawing and automatic writing during their performance.
Their artistic approach is at the frontiers of the imagination: repairing reality by playing with chance.