CURRENT THOUGHTS

"practical approach?
. modelling, moulding, construction
. work in situ : interest in spatial and architectural configurations as settings for execution, exhibition
. design : mixed techniques

recurrence?
. soap, plaster, wax
. actions : tearing, crushing, breaking, sawing, throwing, washing, binding, plastering, encasing, strengthening, filling, emptying
. components : sifter, wire, chain, filter, water, net to collect plaster screenings
. colours : white, red, gold in modest quantity for inviolable figures
. by affectation : debris, flotsam and jetsam from the sea

preoccupations?
. anti-illusionnist
. taking the reality of the material into account would one get closer to something genuine? no cheating an art of behaviour
. substances : solid, liquid or gas, concepts of origins, life, freedom
. improvisation or "distortion" of form
. initial states of form of what comprises elementary nature
. precarious expression, of the type hardly, hardship, about what is lacking, what is nothing, what is white/blank
. creation of poetic images with self-evidence as a constraint a presentation that
follows naturally
. today, in the context of contemporary sculpture : a "re-materialisation" of form
. immanence
. questioning man's relationship with his surroundings : increasingly virtual
modes of organisation and communication a sterile development
. recovering human qualities what virtues?
. romantic vision of the world
. memory/vestiges to fight against ignorance and oblivion
. Armenian origins - impossible to ignore the genocide : "methodical destruction of an ethnic group" (definition in the Petit Robert)

how to proceed?
. empiricism
. maintain a direct rapport with matter, experimental approach
. dialectics : paradoxical, ambivalent, contradictory
. elaboration of form between the disappearance of the model and its reproduction depending as much on its destruction as its construction
. fragment : recomposition by means of repair, consolidation
. imprint : negative print creating a link between form and reality a minimum distance
. covering hides or reinforces
. moulding : improbable a modified reproduction, out of touch with reality
. "archeology" of corporeal states, physical reactions of matter, tactile sensations exposed in their fragility
. indices : wear and tear, traces, fractures
. soap and wax do not stick to plaster
. in situ pieces with soap : installation of simple mechanical devices whose aim is the evolution and transformation of its substance as it dissolves while on public exhibition form constructs itself uncontrolled producing fragments or objects, ready to be reworked or not in the studio as new pieces

content?
. white : dumb, a state of weightlessness removing weight from reality
. gravity : falls
. soap recalls flesh, its various mutations, what is living
. its possible dissolving/dissolution : leading an existence that is dissolute or deprived of solutions
. it does not disappear water evaporates, soap remains
. notion of "intellectual grooming" - of "personal dignity " cf. Francis Ponge, "Soap"
. existence, the body (organism), its fragility, vacuity, memory, life-span
. liquid
. red : blood circulation internal
. soap and wax used to remove things from a mould
. content / container
. hollow / vanity of resistance
. adaptation of the human being who controls nothing."

Frédérique Nalbandian 2006,
translated by Jill Harry.