Painting is Stéphanie Hoareau’s medium of choice. Since the start of her career, she has painted the hidden parts of the Réunion Island by exploring its scenery and residents. […] The artist explores both natural and urban areas, which are conducive to observing different types of fauna. In 2012, she began to work on a large-scale project centred around the fringe figures of the Island […] – people living in the margins of society and regarded with a mixture of suspicion and fascination. These figures have given rise to many a legend and are the subjects of a multitude of rumours, tales and anecdotes. […] From photographs to paintings and from sculpture to video, there is something captivating about the intensity of their eyes. The confrontation of gazes – theirs and ours – elicits equal degrees of fascination and unease. Rather than focus on the marginality of these figures, Stéphanie Hoareau prefers to consider the freedom and frailty of the lives they live on the borders of the organised reality of society.

Julie Crenn, excerpt from TEXTES CRITIQUES SCÈNE RÉUNIONNAISE, 2019.