CelineSianiDjiakoua

I was back to my childhood house this summer, on the countryside, near Nantes. Every summer, I try to make the best of the sun and its heat and I  experiment with techniques that are far less enjoyable in damp winters. Making paper is one of them. This time, I decided to recycle some books that had been waiting to be transferred to my house in the UK but were still there, 16 years later .... I picked "Onitsha by J.M.G Le Clézio" (Onitsha is a city in Niger ). I vaguely remembered it as being a sad and upsetting novel. I stopped reading novels years and years ago. I prefer autobiographies or specialised books. I don't find pleasure in entering someone else's emotional and imaginary worlds, I've got enough to deal with my own, I'd rather watch a movie. It had been offered to me by my mum, as we were going to Sénégal for a holiday. As I started to cut the pages to make the paste, I realised I had put a lot of myself into this book at the time, adding some...

Like every summer, for 3 or 4 weeks, I am back home to France. I grew up between the country side in the South of Nantes, and on the seaside, on the Noirmoutier island, nearby. Every summer, I am fortunate enough to be able to stay in the same houses where I grew up and where my parents still live. It is always a time for reflection about passing years. This summer, my parents are celebrating their 50 years of marriage. Mine lasted 15 or so. The search for a new companion is being arduous but enriching in its self discovery. During these summer weeks, I am back to my childhood but also back to the natural world that surrounds me. After a few days, I always start collecting materials and just make things. This year, the movement has been given by looking at punched dead leaves from an amélanchier tree (or shadbush) in my parents' garden. I think the holes were made by solitary bees . I "glued the holes" made by the solitary bees together ….

Drawings/artbooks installation in All Hallows church, using the church's furniture. The given theme this year was "moving images". photo by Hugh Miller photo by Hugh Miller Series of pencil drawings on tracing paper and cut outs "Blue man" series handmade books with 3 pages tracing paper and carbon paper series of artbooks with various number of pages colour pencil on tracing paper

Image from The Sun newspaper. Trial for what could be a series. They would not all wear a Burqa; this one is just an example. It is more about hiding and not hiding women' bodies and the aggressivity of images around us and the aggressivity of sexuality, to which we can't escape. Background research : click here and scroll down and also look at older posts.