For this installation, Marc offered me two small rooms in a house belonging to Felicia in the village of Ozenay. Each room had once housed an entire family and has remained untouched since they were last occupied in the 1960’s. Although ‘empty’ the presence of occupation is strong; worn terracotta tiles on the floor, a soot stained fireplace, electric wires covered with wooden casing and remains of plaster on the walls, in part painted with red ochre, found locally. It is this red earth that is very present in the village, used to cement the stones together and to make paints and renders. I noticed red rivulets running down the walls in several old buildings where the water had seeped in. Emmanuel took me to visit the place in the woods where the villagers have dug for many years; with the earth that I collected, I made the paint that I poured on the walls to create the running line. By placing a bench, I invited the visitors to sit and contemplate this intervention, in resonance with the use of the same material centuries earlier.

In the second room I installed 3 large ceramic sculptures directly on the worn tile floor, fired clay on fired clay. As in the previous room, there is a direct material link which resonates in this work. The abstract forms fill the space with their physical presence.

“…like animals, like discarded cushions or bedding in which we have once slept, broad backs….a physical work, full of life and restrained interior forces. A work that is strange yet familiar.” Marc de Roover

vivre le lieu

parcours d'art contemporain, ozenay 2015, curated by marc de roover

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jane norbury
photos : jane norbury, pierre masbanaji

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