TOTEM project
The TOTEM Project
The Totem is the link between the sacred and nature.
The project is a human adventure.
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The project is a human adventure.
Man is the only animal that needs to represent himself. A human evolution punctuated by important stages where the conscious image (representative, communicative, cultured ...) has always held a predominant place.
An irrepressible need to explain the world around him.
Is it possible to obscure its cultural and environmental references and create an image language as symbols specific to each? Where have we always been, since the beginning of time, under the influence? Can we find this "sacred fire" in us as the origin of the Human and reclaim its instinctive impulses (and not those imposed by the social diktat)?
These questions were the basis of this work allied to the desire to get in touch with the other, a sensory exchange that would escape the convention by returning to intimacy.
The painting on the body, first surface of ritual inscription, seemed to me the most appropriate technique to answer my questions. The bare skin reveals itself, when it is painted in an abstract way, a unifying force of all that it contains and that expresses itself through it.
The painting on the body, first surface of ritual inscription, seemed to me the most appropriate technique to answer my questions. The bare skin reveals itself, when it is painted in an abstract way, a unifying force of all that it contains and that expresses itself through it.
By painting bodies, like certain tribal peoples, I want to find this unconscious creativity where painting on the skin, by its instinctive and ephemeral side, reveals its loss or its transformation by Western civilization.
This work will be spread out over different stages (which I call Acts) divided into as many bodily parts as will be necessary with each of the questions asked to the person / support relating to an appropriate reflection.
The person / support delivers me his proposal only when I am ready to paint, so that the painting is spontaneous, without reflections, even instinctive. Ephemeral performances, symbolizing the precariousness of the human work, since only an iconographic representation (imprints, photos, posters, objects ...) will remain.
Requests are made in advance to allow the person an appropriate reflection. Bilateral questioning since I ask the person / support to answer me on a specific theme that will allow me not only to deepen my own influences but also to allow it to reflect on the answers it is brought to me.
The painting is created from pigments (earth and cosmetics) and cream.
The transfers
After taking the pictures, I make a transfer. It is an imprint, the only material reality of painting.
Several media can intervene.
The different parts of the body are exposed
Taking pictures will keep track of the painting, transposed into different achievements (posters, enlarged photos, maps ...). They are exhibited with fingerprints, following an order specific to each Act.
The person / support delivers me his proposal only when I am ready to paint, so that the painting is spontaneous, without reflections, even instinctive. Ephemeral performances, symbolizing the precariousness of the human work, since only an iconographic representation (imprints, photos, posters, objects ...) will remain.
Requests are made in advance to allow the person an appropriate reflection. Bilateral questioning since I ask the person / support to answer me on a specific theme that will allow me not only to deepen my own influences but also to allow it to reflect on the answers it is brought to me.
The painting is created from pigments (earth and cosmetics) and cream.
The transfers
After taking the pictures, I make a transfer. It is an imprint, the only material reality of painting.
Several media can intervene.
The different parts of the body are exposed
Taking pictures will keep track of the painting, transposed into different achievements (posters, enlarged photos, maps ...). They are exhibited with fingerprints, following an order specific to each Act.
Other elements may also be involved in the process of an Act, such as
© Valja
