Fabienne Verdier- Retables, Waddington Custot, London - Flipbook - Page 23
THE START
OF THE JOURNEY
Line on the cat
Fabienne Verdier
L’hymne de la nuit
(Anthem of the night)
2023
Regarding the above, much remains unsaid; the journey has only just
begun. It’s time to approach the works as if we know nothing of their
origin, with a fresh and ingenuous eye. What will we see? To find out, I
spread reproductions of a new series of Walking Paintings on the floor.
Suddenly, I felt surrounded by scans of my inner life, where shifting
moods appeared as contrasting horizons or aerial vistas. Or, in another
dimension, I felt as if I were moving through a painted landscape, where
the trace of the gesture that formed it still lingered. Guided by the laws
of physics, an anonymous hand had acted. The artwork merges with
the creative impulse that birthed it. The aim is to capture the energy
at the very inception of its movement. To achieve this, the painter has
made a transversal incision into the “reality” of existence, revealing
depths beyond the surface. There are no models or motifs, no predefined
subjects – only poetic titles that do not constrain the viewer’s imagination. The artwork Était-ce le printemps? Était-ce l’été? (Was it Spring?
Was it Summer?) exists in five iterations, none offering an interpretive
framework. The title’s dual question contemplates themes of rebirth or
decline, though its sun-yellow brilliance defies anyone who would dare
to answer. Like a river, the irregular lines snaking from one panel to the
other blindly seek their course. No clear meaning emerges; instead, a
sensation stirs deep within us, ignited by the image. In the bright light
of day, a persistent clamour rustles, awakened by the multiple flashes of
black against the radiant yellow background. It rises from the depths of
memory, evoking childhood moments when, after night had passed, we
timidly opened our eyes to the morning light filtering through gaps in
the shutters. Beyond the screen of sleep’s lingering isolation, we could
already hear this clamour coming to life and vibrating outside. It was the
throb of heat in the air chanting a heady melody. It was summer. It was
the south. The world was out there, waiting for us.
In 2010, a serious shoulder injury forced Fabienne Verdier to halt her
use of the giant brush for several months. Refusing to give up painting
altogether, she developed a process that marked a significant evolution
in her work. Faithful to the principle of constant gravitational flow, she
invented what she termed an “absolute brush”: a funnel equipped with a
nozzle filled with a mass of paint, which she allowed to flow freely as she
moved across the canvas. Her body’s movement became the instrument
shaping the paint’s spread. The flow generated a principal line alongside myriad splashes that became hallmarks of her Walking Paintings.
With this method, Verdier liberated herself from the confines of her training. Indeed, compelled by circumstances, she steered tradition toward
uncharted territory while honouring its foundational principle of harnessing the energies of the universe. Before Fabienne Verdier’s innovation,
the concept of dripping, of which Jackson Pollock was the most famous
exponent, focused less on gravity’s role in creation and more on achieving expressive compositions through projected paint. Fabienne Verdier
feels closer to the experiments carried out by Yves Klein with his Anthropometries in which the human body was used as a paintbrush. In these
works, creation stemmed from the interaction of masses and energies,
with lines formed by the contact and rubbing of paint-covered bodies
against the canvas. The strength of Fabienne Verdier’s process, reliant
solely on the speed of her movement to vary the lines, lies in the fidelity of translating primary energy. The chaotic splashes symbolise primal
chaos itself. The eruption of symbols unleashes contrasts and hints at
potential meanings, conveying something of reality’s effervescent truth.
It’s a liberated expression of the universe’s libido.
Yves Klein
Héléna
1960
The new series of Walking Paintings is dominated by yellow. Alongside
the greys, reds and greens, yellow dominates like a field of rapeseed in the
middle of the countryside. From my Italian retreat, where reproductions of
the paintings lie on the floor, I can imagine the effect that the five Était-ce
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