Oscillating between fiction and documentary, humor and melancholy, Hélène Delprat’s works form a sprawling constellation of references to literature, cinema, radio, philosophy, internet databases, recorded national histories and canonical art history. Likened to an iconologist, she distills eclectic sources of inspiration into a miraculous inventory. The painting ‘L’apparition’ (2023) borrows, for example, elements from Gustave Moreau’s eponymous work in a horizontally inverted scene: ‘Often, once a painting is finished, I turn into a spectator and say to myself, ‘this reminds me of something.’ This something is not premeditated, which means that I don’t take inspiration from a work to interpret it. It is anchored in my memory, and I must find out what it is.’ In typical fashion, some attributes have been lost in the process—the golden nimbus is empty and John the Baptist’s head has disappeared. Here, the elusive characters and objects eschew context, resisting a single organized narrative.