A painting should be self-sufficient. Yet, all paintings have their stories and so do mine. In this strange period, I’d like to share some of them with you.
Ange dormant sur un astéroïde, pastel on paper, 40x30cm.
One of the paintings in the Êtres-Anges series, from 1997.
Arthur, my husband, encouraged me a lot to draw and paint. We decided to organize my first exhibition still during my studies at University, at his brother’s cafe in a shopping center. It was a crazy experience. With no money, we did all the framing ourselves without being equipped for it: sawing, sticking, filing frames, cutting plexiglass and passe-partout cardboard etc. on the table in our living-room. As a theme, I chose, “Les Êtres-Anges”, which can be translated as “Strangels”. The angel figure was quite present in our life because Arthur was working on his PhD on “The amourous angel figure in French and comparative literature”. I combined it with the idea of things that can be “heavenly strange” in our material world. The drawing I’m showing here was made when one evening, Arthur was lying down on the carpet, totally exhausted after a long day and a shower. He said: “if you want to draw me, you should do it now”. I did, and he very quickly fell asleep. I finished the drawing, imagining a story of a tired angel resting on an asteroid, which I mentioned at the bottom of the painting. Later, when the painting was part of the exhibition, a man came visiting and was happy to receive some comments by Arthur. In front of the “tired angel”, he stopped and watched, totally amazed, then exclaimed: “But this is my wife! This morning, in bed, she was lying exactly like this, saying exactly what this painting says too.” he absolutely wanted to buy the drawing, came back to watch it again but finally disappeared.
