“In the beginning, there were the three birch trees in the small garden.
I had access to the neighbours’ lime and cherry trees, but I could peel the birch trees.
I loved it, I tried to make the biggest peels possible.
It could kill the tree, I was told one day.
I continued my work, taking care not to kill the trees.
When I was older, I started to wage war, that also kept me busy, I was a spy.
My weapon and my pleasure were to make “dog droppings”, made with clay from the garden, moulded and painted with gouache, then placed in the mailboxes or on the steps of the entrance of enemy houses.
Discovery of the texture of the earth with its combinations and coherences.
Birth of the clay people with skin that resembles tree bark, standing, defying balance, traces of war and life.
The drawn arms increasingly resemble veins that irrigate the trunks with sap and the long fingers with fine roots.
Figurative work, deformed, freely treated
He is standing, vibrant, expressive, fragile...
She is clay, diverted from its utilitarian role, without varnish, cooked, defying time.
She is covered with cracks, crevices, cracks...
He is covered with scars, wrinkles and folds.
Traces of life, traces of experience.
People whose skin resembles tree bark.
Proud, vertical and dignified, sometimes arrogant, seductive or seduced, or simply him.
Without arms, no they are there, engraved and highlighted in white, stuck to the body, as if powerless.
Fluidity of the body.
Raw man, erect, authentic man.
To make the white man, I took black earth, for black, white.
Neither skin, nor color, a person, a spirit.
At the dawn of speech, there is the gesture of standing up….of creating.
Fabienne Claesen