ALL AND NOTHING

I welcome you

MATRIMONIO – LA RENAISSANCE

It was a cold night in Tangiers. I went to bed and covered myself from head to toe. Whenever I uncovered my head, my nose froze within minutes, so I would quickly duck back under the warm blankets. It was time for me to be in complete darkness, to face all my shadows. The next morning, the sun was shining, and I came to life. Quite different from the day of my actual birth on earth when it was grey out and raining.

For breakfast, the keeper of the riad brought me apple and quince compote – the same food I prepared for my children when they were infants. Now here I was, taking baby steps…
Tangiers nurtured me, mothered me, propelled me…and called me back a few months later to participate in Yto Barrada’s workshop, The Mothership. Coincidence?

I returned from Tangiers to Casablanca transformed. I knew I needed to keep Mother Nature close by, so I set up “natures vivantes” in my studio, surrounding myself with flowers. (Hola querida Frida, Viva La Vida!) I painted in a way I had never painted before. The rapidity of the brushstrokes and decision-making followed a tempo I had only previously experienced in calligraphy and drawing. My palette’s breadth seemed immeasurable with color choice. I trusted my heritage and myself for the first time in a while. This was a time of celebration. I had returned to myself and renewed my vows to painting. In my studio the renaissance had blossomed.

Le concerto de piano de Schumann est venu vers moi il y a quelques mois et depuis je peins avec, habitée. Il m’a permis d’étendre les dimensions de mes toiles dans la série intitulée Matriomonio – La Renaissance et m’a poussée à redéfinir le temps autrement.
Robert Schumann a écrit le premier mouvement du concerto en 1841. Il l’a publié comme une grande sonate, mais il a été très mal reçu. Ce n’est que deux ans plus tard, grâce aux encouragements de sa femme Clara Schumann, elle-même pianiste virtuose, qu’il a étendu l’œuvre en concerto, acclamé alors par le public. C’est le seul concerto pour piano que Schumann ait écrit, après de multiples tentatives, alors que le piano était son instrument de prédilection.
Ce concerto marque la fin d’une période de trois ans de création névrotique pour Schumann, ainsi que le début d’une période de désolation. Le piano dans le concerto est très généreux et laisse souvent la voix à l’orchestre. Vous pouvez entendre et voir le dialogue entre ces deux parties, le piano soliste et l’orchestre. Mon souhait est que les toiles de Matrimonio-La Renaissance fassent écho en vous. La version du concerto que j’écoute en atelier est celle interprétée pas la pianiste franco-américaine Hélène Grimaud dont je partage avec vous une citation:
«Une fausse note jouée avec élan ne s’entend pas de la même façon qu’une fausse note
jouée par peur».

Les peintures de la série Matrimonio – La Renaissance suivent cet élan.

PARETE

When I visited Pompeii as a child, I knew I was anchored there somehow. The remains of wall paintings in the homes inherently stood as precious gifts; protected by the ashes, to be revealed again. Since the passing of my little brother John, that notion of rising has become ever more prevalent to me and to my work.

While working in Antonio Murado’s studio in Chelsea, NY, I studied the paintings of the Spanish masters in conjunction with the subject of the wall. Thus emerged the Parete* series. I became obsessed with walls; their beauty and diversity, as well as their ability to protect or separate.

During this series I felt a pull back to the time when I wandered through Mexico City reveling in the works of Orozco, Siquieros and Rivera. I yearn for the physical breadth of their murals and the vast specter of color that elevate their subjects.

I also felt a pull to the women of Chefchaoun, Morocco. I feel their labor and mine are just as poetic; each year they are tasked to repaint the walls of their homes with a combination of lime and pigment. The process bites at the skin. I have used the same process as a base for several of my paintings in the Parete series. I include this feminine reference in my process as a reverence to the female workforce so miserably recognized across the planet to this day.

In the creation of this series, one of the final layers of paint consists of applying oils mixed with varnishes that I then remove with bands of tape. These gestures re-enact those of a woman waxing her body with bands of cloth. Each time I get to this point in the works, I no longer feel lonely in the studio.

*Parete: in Italian means wall.

ARACHNE

The weblike geometry of the Arachne series serves both as a comforting net and as an homage to my brother John. He was tall with strong shoulders but would scare at the sight of a spider. I gifted the first three paintings of the Arachne series to my brother the summer before his death. While I was visiting my family in New York, I found myself behind a truck at a traffic light. That moment I knew I had been looking for something. On the rear of the truck, there was a diagonal line made by the weathered paint. It stuck to me visually. That simple line marked the beginning of the series.

LES DECHIRURES

The starting point of this series of collages was to make something with my daughter, while we were home isolating due to covid. We wanted to spend some time together doing something enjoyable, side by side. Collage is easy to leave and come back to, so the medium gave me an opportunity to create and mother simultaneously.

The first magazine I used as material for Les Déchirures was an Artcurial catalogue, (Un printemps Marocain – mai 2021 edition), which just happened to be lying around. I then used Diptyk magazine extensively as well as Beaux Arts magazine. I like the idea of making new original work from a family of reproduced images of works of art. I started to get reacquainted with paper during this series in a very sensorial way: from the gestures and sounds made by ripping paper, to the texture and palette of each magazine.

The series Les Déchirures also helps keep me updated on current events in the arts, which I have tended to shy away from this last decade. Reading the content of the magazines before tearing the magazine apart, seems to me to be a basic prerequisite. Otherwise, the idea of up-cycling doesn’t feel quite complete.

Collage mimics my current preoccupations, notably how easily objects and relationships can be broken and how to make things whole again. In collage, each piece of paper represents a new possibility, a new complexity, and together the pieces compose a single harmony.

Collage can be perceived as childlike. It is accessible to many, both because the materials are easily found and affordable to most. Also collage has a way of keeping things simple, everyone can try their hand at it, the stakes seem lower than in the classical art forms of painting and drawing for example. I think of collage as democratic. It is a means for me to connect with the viewer in a simple way. I make little videos of the process to share how each work is made, how the composition of each piece evolves and to evoke the tempo of creating a work. Collage has showed me how sensitive I have become to time. Following the tempo of my heartbeat is the sentiment that collage is a way for me to share the process with the other.

The collages also prepared me for what was to come next: a trip to Tangiers I will never forget. Inevitably, Matisse reappeared into my life, I had been summoning him through Les Déchirures, and now up north I was on his tracks.

SHAKTI

Each month, as I enter the red moon, I collect my menstrual blood. I use this rich medium to create paintings of flowers – the literal blossoming of nature. This series serves as a reflection on the power of the womb and its dynamic, resilient and regenerative properties. The Shakti* paintings invoke the time when women were honored and their bodies treasured for what they are capable to activate via creation or destruction. As a collection, the paintings create a calendar of renewal, marking the tempo of my existence.

*Shakti: Hindu Goddess who represents the power of the feminine

LES DANSEUSES

Les Danseuses sont des calligraphies corporelles, des extensions de danse sur papier.
Cette série traduit le rapprochement entre les différents mouvements circulaires de la
femme qui danse, faisant rejoindre les mouvements lents et ronds du travail de
l’accouchement avec ceux de faire l’amour. Le papier de mûrier absorbe l’encre de chine, laissant en surface le toucher doux et rapide du pinceau. Le materiel utilisé pour créer Les Danseuses rappelle l’union des forces qu’incarne la femme: la densité et la puissance de l’encre avec la légèreté et la souplesse du papier.
Le carcan patriarcal arrache sa sensualité à l’image de la mère. Cette œuvre redonne à la femme toute sa complétude, sa plénitude.

GROWTH CHART – PANTHEON

Visitors are invited to measure themselves by making a mark on the wall, mimicking the elders charting their children’s growth. This might ignite the excitement that one little line may create, or simply be a reminder of our physical presence in this world.
The objective is to allow viewers to become actively engaged – their participation in the work enhances the chances of them feeling something…the nostalgia of childhood, the opportunity for growth, their place as individuals and community here on earth, all the while with a visual queue of a female force of creators in their face as a point of reference.

Women are so underrepresented in galleries, museums, in the market and thereby in history. I strongly believe it is our responsibility to make equality a reality. Growth Chart allows me to honor the female artists that I admire and share their names with those who may not yet know them.

The names and heights of the featured artists who make up the minyan of Growth Chart are the following:
Ana Mendieta, Yto Barrada, Joan Mitchell, Jennifer Guidi, Kara Walker, Amina Aqueznay, Ghizlane Agzenai, Frida Kahlo, Claire Tabouret, Fatima Mazmouz, Ying Li.

Growth Chart also appeals to my compulsion to visually measure things in relation to one another. Perhaps that is why I love drawing. It is almost beyond my control to attempt to find the middle of things. As a child I would count the markings on the barriers of the highway – the symmetry of the lines in the cement fascinated me and made rhythms that made time so interesting. Today, I catch myself counting the spaces between the leaves. I marvel at how in nature, harmony exists by embracing imperfection. I believe that is at the source of beauty.