Les Couches de la Vie

There are canvases that resemble the lives we have lived. This is one of them.

Each layer was painted, then covered, then scraped. Each gesture left its trace, even beneath the gestures that came after. Nothing has been erased, everything is still there, underneath. It is enough for the light to touch the matter at the right angle for the ancient lives to rise again.

The white on the surface might suggest a fresh start. But if one looks closely, the old volutes are still there, engraved in the relief. The gildings one thought lost surface in glints. The coppered reds, the turquoises, the browns, everything that has been lived through continues to say something.

That is what a life is. It is not the successive layers that define us. It is what the matter has kept of them.

Les Couches de la Vie embodies the very essence of the Palimpseste series: making visible what time has inscribed in secret. A patient practice, where time becomes co-author of the work.

Part of the series Ce que la matière garde (Palimpseste). Matter, acrylic, gold leaf, baroque motifs in relief. Wabi-sabi. To paint the lives lived through. To sculpt what remains.