Vie, tâches, vie

In the painting Vie, tâches, vie, Clédia Fourniau started from the line and the mark, from the way they behave and blend together until they become a kind of scribble. As if a child learning to read and write had not managed to write correctly on the lines. The colour of the linen allows for a kind of neutrality and lack of expressiveness, which contradicts the very colourful gestures.

By making gestures that seem unfinished or unsuccessful, the artist also sought to disrupt, or at least question, notions of authority, the sacred status of painting and progress, while also questioning those of representation, process, the double and the real. She thought a great deal about the work of Amy Sillman. “What motivates me to create, to work, to write, to draw,” the painter explained in a 2020 interview, “is to operate like a kind of tinkerer, flâneur, voyeur, radish grower, car mechanic, to take pieces and, through my work, recreate a strange new language.”