Nation of Angela (NOA) is an island jealously preserved, an arch that is surviving in the middle of a flood, a regained Heaven.
Geographical location: uncertain. Temperature: ideal. Density: dreamlike. Area: extendable endlessly. NOA is an area elastic like a liquid crystal screen. The official language is e-poetry, language as hybrid as eccentric born from translation systems on the Internet; some Babylonian informatics that each citizen enjoys, whether he is a pop singer or a simple soldier.
NOA’s motto - “Let’s flee clustered”- recommends the escapade and fantasizing as a remedy for every pain. “Respect the past, grasp the future” is the slogan.

In the heart of an aesthetic nebula, NOA is a utopia where a Dadaist flavour, a dose of Surrealism, but also a bit of Minimalism, some rock impulses and a pop electronic spirit are all mixing up. And the list can get longer, because NOA doesn’t deny itself anything and just expresses whatever the mean: wall drawings, video, sculptures, objects … Among other sensual phantasmagoria.
Populated with fabulous animals, hybrid creatures and fantastic beings, NOA is above all a utopia created from nothing by the artist.

Invited by ADDICT Galerie to present her first personal exhibition, Sophie Toulouse lets us visit a chapter from NOA’s History.
We are driven straight into a civil war, which battles have been recounted in the sixth chapter of the Bible of NOA: one of the eminent narratives has been reported by the musician and writer Scott Mac Cloud.
In this war, the honest citizens of NOA confront the invincible and massive army of “FAT ELVIS”. Is it a struggle between an anorexic army against a bulimic army? These are the two faces of the same tormented social body, confronted, with the same harshness, to the same state regime.

As genius and talented as bulimic and tortured, the singer Elvis is the reference and symbol which represents “FAT ELVIS” army. From the beginning, on several screens, this army exhibits and spreads its best warriors. In offensive position, with their boxing gloves and deck out with their “banana-shaped” hair, a group of characters with the head of the singer Elvis make some shows by force and dance endlessly.
On the gallery’s wall, a fresco resumes black on white, the main events of those battles. Both on the surface and in the underground version, the conflict is fierce. The soldiers of the two armies indulge in fighting and in carnal temptations. It is the musician Philippe Deshaies, who translates these hot scenes in a pop-Wagnerian impulse.
An impression of Armageddon emerges from this musical composition, in addition to what, one can smell fragrances, see drawings, sculptures, and a cabinet of curiosities as well.
It is the occasion to the visitor, to relive with all his senses and from the inside, one of the most important chapters of the History of NOA.

Anaïd Demir