Even at its great distance, the sun’s glare is so powerful that to stare at it directly is enough to sear one’s retinas. The six drawings that comprise Amélie Bouvier’s Sun Conspiracy series are an early foray into looking at, or perhaps toward, the sun and its heavenly vault. Tender renditions of fictive celestial bodies remind us that our gaze is always, necessarily, mediated. Through tight striations of india ink made using hand-modified rulers, Bouvier creates orbs and satellite shapes that emerge from white backgrounds or against thick ribbons of black ink.

Like the sun, these drawings have created a gravitational pull around which Bouvier’s more recent works now orbit, endlessly circling our cosmos and its relationship to humankind. Each of the six drawings are encased in lead frames. Lead is soft and malleable and extremely reactive to touch and temperature. It is also toxic. As a neurotoxin, it accumulates in soft tissues and bones wreaking havoc on the nervous system and the function of biological enzymes. To Bouvier, lead is a little like our sun; beautiful but deadly. It is much more than meets the eye.