Using text in my work

The Border - 2007 - acrylic on canvas, 36" x 60"


The Border (detail)

I am very interested in the exhibition “In the beginning” because of all the different uses of texts. I use more and more texts in my pieces, French and English: poems I wrote in French, extracts of my travel diaries, texts in English I extract from the news … They are not really meant to be read because they are usually partly hidden, but they are there. I really enjoy the technique I am using right now on my paintings: stamping the letters, one by one.

Undocumented 3, 2006, face-mounted digital print, 24" x 24"

Undocumented 3 (detail)

I also work with texts, sentences and words in my digital images. You can always read parts of the texts. Sometimes they are overlapping so much that it creates a “color”, like a shade. In the series “Undocumented”, the text creates an impression of fog where the people are appearing and disappearing.

Lately I bought a new set of stamps, they are bigger, and I started to use them to stamp simple words on the canvases. It is a completely different feeling. You can see the words from far, they give a direction to the viewer. But I am interested to search further and see what happens. I have, like Monique Prieto, a background in graphic design. As a graphic designer, working with letters was what I was doing everyday. I am still paying attention to all the signs around me, the colors, the sizes, the contrasts, and I am very attentive to the layouts I see. I am more and more at ease to merge everything together with a lot of pleasure. Everything is possible, everything is open!