close-up photograph of paint splashes on an easel found at the cite des arts, placed on the easel itself. Splashes of paint, left by different residents at different times in different studios.
photos en gros plan d'éclaboussures de peinture sur un chevalet, posé sur le chevalet.
The day I arrived at the cité des arts, and walked to my studio 8123 on the first floor of the main building through a dark corbusier-like corridor, I noticed an easel next to the lift, not far from my studio door. It had a certain presence. Weeks passed and I kept thinking about the beauty of some of these structures. I have an intuitive tendency to work with support structures, and I have previously used sign frames, scaffolds and trestles, buildings in different works. I wanted to be around one more, to understand what attracted me to it. So asked reception if I could have one in my studio. Then, I went out for a bit. When I returned to the studio, I found it in the centre of my room. The first thing I noticed was that it had a lot of paint splashes. I wondered who used it before me, and how long it’s been in use. It collected a conglomeration of different paint splashes, at different times, in different studios by different artists. A collection of remnants - of individual strokes, gestures, processes, mistakes, successes. Different presences. Different marks, dust, dirt, cracks. Forming a sort of abstract resident landscape. Aside from my new video work Fleeting Intimacies which is tied to the subterranean space of the cite (the metro beneath) this work is also tied to cité’s physicality, some of its residents and their processes, time and place.
