Passing by the tree, the skin of memory (artist statement)

This body of work is about my aunt who suffers from Dementia. She remembers very little of the past and to visit her is like entering another world. I wanted to remember our time together. When I see her or think of her I attach images which, to use Proust’s expression, “will break the spell”.

My aunt doesn’t speak French anymore and from the new language she has created, I developed a set of poems based on our surrealistic conversation. They translate my emotion into written sounds and rhythms.
The drawings of geometrical shapes are a representation of the space we live in but with illusions and distortions translating the world my Aunt lives in.

I also wanted to remember the everyday objects that were part of her life: rubbings on paper such as the armchair she used to sit on and other pieces of furniture; a tactile and intimate photography of her objects.
I constructed fragile paper vessels made from cotton fibers, it dries like the skin: it wrinkles and they carry balls of un-knitted wool, holding its own memory and the passing of time.

They are remnants of a past life and the memories of things past. As Proust wrote, they become my trees, awaking, recollecting the account of our days together.

This entry was posted in Catalogues and Statements on May 19, 2012