In 2020, I spend a long period in Brittany with my grandmother, who was losing her memory. I found the cover of an old family boat in the cellar, pierced with holes, ripped open by time. The vestige of a souvenir I'd often been told, a memory left there. I cut the canvas into rhombus-shaped fragments. We spent several weeks sewing them back together, one by one. She, a former fabric merchant, occasionally recapturing faded memories, while me listening, in meditative rhythm, to the reconstitution of the memory.
Once sewn back together, the boat cover had the appearance of a moult, and when the light was shining through it, of a starry sky. The rhombic shapes recall the meshes of the fishing nets I use in my paintings. These shapes are empty in the nets, but here they were plain and looked like scales. In this reconstituted skin, we could find ourselves and retain fragments of memory.

In 2020, I spend a long period in Brittany with my grandmother, who was losing her memory. I found the cover of an old family boat in the cellar, pierced with holes, ripped open by time. The vestige of a souvenir I'd often been told, a memory left there. I cut the canvas into rhombus-shaped fragments. We spent several weeks sewing them back together, one by one. She, a former fabric merchant, occasionally recapturing faded memories, while me listening, in meditative rhythm, to the reconstitution of the memory.
Once sewn back together, the boat cover had the appearance of a moult, and when the light was shining through it, of a starry sky. The rhombic shapes recall the meshes of the fishing nets I use in my paintings. These shapes are empty in the nets, but here they were plain and looked like scales. In this reconstituted skin, we could find ourselves and retain fragments of memory.