A LIFE OF INSPIRATIONS — Pascale Fournier

2020’s work

40 as a quarantine, like the 40 days in the desert, like the 40 thieves...40 is the multiplicity. It is a lot, it is a long time.
The cross, anthropomorphic, Christic, abstract in its geometry, gregarious by accumulation.

We find in this work, themes that are important to me: at the same time the will to connect, to reunite, and the feeling that we are all linked, tied to each other solidarity.

Here I show the crosses-modulated one by one in their individuality.

This work was born during the lockdown of this year 2020.
I am currently working on the elaboration of 40 elements, crossed modules together. An agglomeration of crosses.

With this work, I want to participate in a collective exhibition of the works created in this difficult and for many terrible years.

2020 = 40

THE BASEBOARDS

Under the cantilever are lots of old wooden beams. Many of them were used to build the acoustic chamber of the sound studio. They are probably from an old structure, but when were they made? I don't know. Like the stones we used, we use now and we will use it again. The baseboard is part of the sculpture.
Working on this old oak tree is like playing music on a beautiful instrument. The heart of the wood is hard and dense never attacked by insects as the sapwood. I take it off with an old tool; the oak and its wavy lines are revealed 40, 80, 120, 180... sanding reveals the secrets of the wood. It’s magical !

Journal ... One cross per day

1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 …… 40

Forty days and forty nights. It rained forty days and it rained forty nights as in the Louis Armstrong song.

On March 9 I started up the 3D printer. The more days go by, the more the sound and noise of the compressor drilling into my head annoy me, just like the threat of COVID 19. Impossible not to think about it. I chain crosses and crosses that look like a military cemetery. This is not my purpose, I create and assemble modules, all identical and all different at the same time.
It is true, in the end, the artist always tells the same story, writes the same book ... I move forward while I am in quarantine: I go to number 25.

The new world of Charlotte PERRIAND

The new world of Charlotte PERRIAND at the LVMH Foundation: A proposal of Arts synthesis with Le Corbusier, Pierre Jeanneret, Picasso, Fernand Léger, Hartung. Useful forms, art directly inspired by nature and its curves.
Another, The Art of living, this work invites us to think about the impact of art in our lives.

Until the 17th century, there were no assigned spaces, all the pieces had the same surface; functioning as a bedroom the closed beds to which we went up at night, as a dining room where we dressed the table, a room where we received people. No sewer, no heating, no water service, no electricity: being able to install anywhere.
When we travel, we take our furniture with us. I love this way of being nomads, those modular, multifunctional spaces that drive us into a movement and into living life in common.
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Re-opening of the Modern Art Museum after works. Hans Hartung: The Gesture factory. Large and clear spaces resonating with the hessian. Intense, solid and free. Spontaneous and orderly. The color of the background is infinitely bright, endless blacks. Those are the hessian to live inexhaustibly.

Life and work

One place can bring life and work together. As in the theater: the unity of space, unity of time, unity of action.
I see all the same, the same furniture painted in white. An expanded room. Gulliver in the country of Lilliput. Alice in Wonderland.
We can say the Workshop is in progress: to appropriate the light and space of point 8FW58N53 + JR.

Chassy's castle-farm has the name of Gallo-Roman: Cassius' house.
In U with the sunset of the sun. The days there are longer.

Thursday, November 14
Rainy weather, 1°, mud everywhere. Excavation work continues.
The mezzanine heaters were turned on since this morning. Friday, November 15. It snowed this morning.
At 3 in the afternoon, I cross the hall with the rain, I had my briefcase (portable office for months), my computer, the vacuum, rags, a coffee and a bottle of water.
6:27 pm the music player is connected: Lana del Rey Ultraviolence. Tomorrow boxes.
Saturday, November 16.
9 am a warm and beautiful light welcomed me. The arrangements continue. The piles of boxes seem endless. I throw things, I classify files.
Tuesday, November 19: plans, easels arrived this morning and tomorrow desk chairs will. That's it. It's done.

Go downstairs with the astronaut suit that attacks me while I am making the distribution of the Great Workshop, an extensive isolated space but without heating, that is another story. Go on! We started.

Move

September 20, 2019, has been a great day for Chassy. In the morning the moving trucks and Portugal frames arrived. It was a hard day. The moving was fast and methodical. On the very next day, the windows and doors were quickly placed.

Friday back to place. The frames were already assembled despite a problem with the arch of the doors that left a 10 cm gap. We consider this construction phase as over. It was a decisive step.

Taking place: The workspace

Workspace: An organized, functional, tidy and equipped place. Each situation must be resolved effectively, each movement finds its tool.

The works are late. We have an open space; My office seems to be small, without shelves. Cartons and boxes.

The arrival of children changes every mood; in a few minutes, they fill the working place into an ideal space for games, in a dreamed velodrome. We made tents, for the bike, for the skateboard; We camped, played and did picnic even when it rained.

It is also a change of environment for my sculptures who amazed observe everything.

Moving the workplace

Moving the workplace, office, shelves, library, ovens, and piano. What to say about it? Dismantle the decoration and lift it somewhere else? It is better to look at the place in a different way. See things from a new angle. In my case, to go there even if it is not ready. At the last moment, the shelves did not fit in the truck. With a month late, the frames are not installed. I know it's normal and I don't want to worry about it. Go ahead, let's go.

The mountains of wood, beams, and boards that we have in place will serve as shelves and work plans.

In one week we have sanded 42 beams! We have optimal conditions working covered and outdoors. Children also take care of space by seeing things from another angle, in their way.

Third summer in Chassy

Back to Paris for work. The temperature rises to 42 °. Overwhelmed by the heat, I dream with noisy waves and blue sea.

Water the garden right away. The freshness of the wet soil reminds me of my childhood, the smell of waking up at dawn and hearing the noise of the hose on the gravel. The sea smells like a watermelon. We collected figs when returning from the beach.

Arrive early in Chassy to dive into the frozen river and place the headache-head underwater to recover.

New York

I had the pleasure of meeting with my sister Estelle Fournier Artistic Adviser in Partner in Art, Co-Chair in Summit Public Art in New York. We share our passion for Contemporary Art. We went together to the Whitney Biennale and visited King Storm Park last May. A deep friendship came along with the projects we made and into the Art we love.

EMIGRATE - LEAVE

There has always been immigration. Prepare your belongings. To leave everything and to escape. Going as a group, as a family. It is a break, a change in life. We leave in more or less dramatic conditions. Even if hope dominates, hardly ever we emigrate with happiness in the heart, instead, we feel fear in the womb.

D'Galerie 2018: my installation for the LIEN exhibition with a current immigration theme. On the one hand immigrants and on the other a dreamed world: organized and exuberant. In the middle, the blue sea, the Mediterranean to cross. The red mesh: the shipwrecked, those who never arrive.

In my NY trip made in May 2019, I returned to the Ellis Island where I always feel moved.

Biennale Whitney 2019: Maïa Ruth Lee - Bondage. With the theme of Baggage wisely folded.

New Museum May 2019: I discovered the amazing work of Nari Ward.

Mayan Pyramids

The architecture of the Mayan Pyramids inspire me by their simplicity and complex geometry. Built with the same principles. North-South; East-West, as an organized and hierarchical civilization.

I see sculptures in my current work on pedestals, exhibitions, balloons, reliquaries, scenography and ambience in space. The harmonious connection of levels and staircases made my mind creates different kind of forms and materials.

Paris Contemporary Drawing Fair

Sunday is the last day. In this season everybody is outside for the first sunny day of the year.

It is crowded, so many people waiting for the drawings, quite warm, a lot of noise, a lot of words. My eyes stares and ramble on the geometric, elaborated and minimalist pieces. It is beautiful, poetic and controlled.

Albert Einstein “The perfection in method and the ultimate aim confusion seems to define our time”. We have the right to ask ourselves what is the perfect method.

Confusing concepts. The commonly used concepts are crashed by senses. The concept is not enough and it can not replace the work.

Calakmul

This year is my opportunity to discover Mayan sites, to expand and better understand this culture living in the "ejidos" .

CALAKMUL with Herminio. It's a lucky day. We see all kinds of birds -el trogon, el cojolita, chachalakas, a whole family of badger-. The mono aviadores, the monos araña, (monkeys). It rains. Howler monkeys calling the rain and summoning the rain god Chaak. Of course, It will rain a huge part of the night. A relaxing beauty of trees.

Temples of RIO BEC in the heart of the jungle, inaccessible. The inhabitants of the ejido 20 de Noviembre jealousy defend this place of Mayan spirituality, connected with the Beyond (13 heaven) and the Underworld (9 layers).

The towers served as observatories. The Mayans used a translucent stone -Sasil Tunich- as a magnifying lens. We see the god of the rain Chaak, a kneeling man invoking him in front of a dry corn cob, Kaan the serpent god of life, Ik the god of the wind that brings the rain, the symbols of the trees that receive water and light, give the fruits and sink their roots into the earth. Always the link between the sky, the earth or lives the man and the underworld. The architecture Is where the sun rises and birth, the west where it disappears, the death, the North and the South.

We arrive there in the old Humberto pick up after miles of muddy roads. A shock, a revelation.

Mérida

What a joy to be in Mérida, to meet with my family, my friends and make my projects move forward. Appointment with my colleague Aniria Nava Ponce from Aforo.

Visit to the exhibition, France eMotion in the Alianza Francesa and meeting with the Director Alexandre Guillochon on the eve of a future exhibition. At the entrance to the Alianza Francesa, a fresco of ... representing the great men who participated in its founding: Among them Jean Jaures, Jules Verne, Louis Pasteur, Ferdinand de Lesseps, Jules Ferry. Impressive, but where are the women?

Avelines museum

My future workspace allows me to work, collaborate and share with other artists meanwhile I can keep my personal space. I can also feel this sharing in my way through artistic residences.

I respond to collaborative calls projects such as the created for a CRAFT research and creation residency in which the proposed theme was: woven porcelain (3D printing and fabrics).

I also like to work with children, the friends of the Avelines museum and participate in their workshops or open them the doors of my workshop, make the sculptures and show them the different stages of the art work. I wish I could continue this in Chassy.