Branch Lines

If in places the forest is "so magnificent that nothing can be added" (Will Menter), the Fontaine Saint-Pierre instills an intimate atmosphere, inviting contemplation and focusing your attention. You glimpse a flight of graphic lines, their white mattness capturing the light. It is Branch Lines, by Jane Norbury, a hanging river of branches gathered on the site, painted and then positioned horizontally, following the trickling of water. This drawing in space is born above the fountain which it overhangs at its start.  It then follows the stream downhill, swooping low before taking its freedom, wending its sinuous path through the forest, branches amongst branches. Light is reflected by the colour of the paint; a mixture of flour, linseed oil and kaolin - the white clay which we know from its use in porcelain. Veering between spectral apparition and abstract writing, the work seems to detach itself from its wooded context in a poetic weightlessness.

Anne Yanover, 2017

This piece was created with the help of Didier, Claude, Pascal, Damien, Julian and Alain from the Parc naturel region de Morvan over the winter of 2016/7

This installation is one element in the project Time Lines emerging from the earth, hanging in the air conceived and created with Will Menter for the Archaeological Museum of Bibracte and the site of Mont Beauvray. See Queules and booklet about the project.