Lotus et bouche cousue I

Lotus et bouche cousue I
H42 cm, L29,7 cm

The three paintings form part of *Lotus et bouche cousue*, an installation created specifically for the *Femmes Plurielles* event at the Prieuré du Bourget-du-Lac in 2026. I conceived this work around the condition of women, memory and writing, focusing in particular on Nüshu, a script developed and used by Chinese women in a context where they were largely excluded from official writing and education. Nüshu enabled them to pass on stories, advice, sorrows, solidarity and hopes: an intimate form of writing that became a space for transmission and inner freedom.

For these paintings, I began with old photographs, which I chose as vessels of memory. I then transformed them through my own artistic process: after learning and experimenting with Nüshu calligraphy, I inscribed the characters by hand onto the images, then added embroidery, having learnt the blanket stitch in particular. The thread thus extends the movement of the hand and that of writing, whilst connecting and transforming the image.

The title Lotus and Sealed Lips refers to two forms of constraint. The ‘lotus’ refers to foot-binding, a painful practice that altered the bodies of young Chinese girls and restricted their movement. The ‘sealed lips’, meanwhile, evoke silenced speech and enforced silence. Between these two images, Nüshu emerges as another way of speaking out: a script born of constraint, yet one that enabled women to tell their stories, to pass on knowledge and to maintain a bond amongst themselves.

The three works are thus constructed through the superimposition of several traces: that of an old photograph, that of a script which I myself learnt and practised in calligraphy, and that of the thread I embroidered onto the paper. They form part of a body of work that builds on my sculptures exploring memory, traces and gesture, but this time shifting my focus from wood to paper, from sculpture to image, and from the act of sculpting to those of calligraphy and embroidery.