I am a product of writing. I was born into it, I grew up in it, it has nourished me and today I live it.
My days are cadenced by this black pen, of which I refuse to let go, that carves into paper and gives forms their meaning. Not a day passes without words signified and defined, whether for myself or for my work––I must translate ideas and transform them into concrete words.
What I cannot say, I write. That which I cannot write, I draw. The majority of time betweentwo chapters or two paragraphs, I flee to the frontier of the written and take refuge in drawing. Like a prolongation of my activity, a continuity of my grip, drawing manifests like a form of freedom. A freedom from words, from their meanings and their essence. These tiny veins, like small cuttings that intertwine, seem to [débiner] run off, progressively, minutely; they burstout and spring forth from the instinct of fleeing definition. Once un-sensed, they remainnevertheless controlled, precise, and framed, despite the relationship between the frame, the limit and the limitless.
The Language
Ceaselessly attracted by the Other, I quickly felt a need to find means of communication withwhomever and wherever they came from, whatever they may speak. Having become Israeli over five years ago, I travel between several tongues, several languages; I am in-between twoexpressions.
I think in French, I live it; it’s my visceral, maternal language. Hebrew is the language of my heart; it animates and moves me. English is a language-tool. It lets me communicateplatonically, without emotion or sentiment, but clearly.
Drawing allows me to flee these boundaries which are simultaneously emotional and pragmatic. These languages constitute me ; I juggle them from one to the other, from one frustration to another since their meanings do not always manifest as they should.
When I draw, it is in a simultaneously visceral (french), methodic (english) and emotional (hebrew) manner that I trace and retrace what I feel. At first there is an initial jet of ink, then anotherone comes to complete it––different but always linked to the first. Generally, there is a certain period of time between the start and finish of a drawing, as if l were leaving it to mature and allowing me to nourish it.
Explorer
The meaning of words, their translations, the vocabulary, the synonyms of each language have always fascinated me. Once we strip words of their meanings, once we take away their connotations, what remains? Their forms.
Disconnected from all methodology of reading, everyone –– in different languages –– can finally read. I explore the aesthetic forms of words through drawing, just as when I explore their literary qualities through writing. I search for these words that I used to see in mychildhood without being able to read them. These omnipresent words, written in differentforms, which I found beautiful and well-made, I imagined them full of stories I was free to invent since I could not decipher them. I have always “played with words” like I “playedgrown-ups” or “played my dad”. Daughter of a writer, I imagined that if I could alsoreproduce these little black forms on white paper, I would grow closer to my father.
Colours
Colours often appear as a jet, an impulse, almost as an intrusion. At first I found the color easy, sometimes even aggressive, then
it proved to be necessary. It seems to defy the black. I started to love the infinity of its possibilities. Imposing by nature; It's voluntarily that
I sometimes put it in the background, symbolically, as a figure of reminder, an opening, which dialogues with my first choice, black.
Black and White
Just as in a book, it is black and white, without language and without reading required. A book one understands without having to decipher. When I pass from writing to drawing, I approach the state of childhood. No more rules, no more comprehension is demanded and demanding. Only aesthetics, playfulness, ambiguity, and curiosity are important to me. Therefore I write without desiring to speak, or more so I write and grant the other liberty to read what they wish to read, regardless of the language they speak and understand. Coloroften appears as a jet, a pulsion, an unexpected interloper. I find color to be easy, sometimesaggressive and nevertheless necessary. But I like defying the black, crushing the black and facing it head on. I like exploring its possibilities, even if sometimes color imposes itself, as if reminding me that it exists and holds possibilities. Imposing by nature, I voluntarily wish to place it in the background, like a reminder, an opening that paradoxically pushes me back to my first choice.
