Michèle Sylvander

Michèle Sylvander is a visual artist who lives and works in Marseille. Until recently, she had not invested much time in drawing, but rather in photography and video-making. The artist has made her mark on the art scene with a body of work that verges on the subversive, on the overturning of values, with a particular focus on questions of gender and social status. She has gradually developed the habit of drawing the first shapes that emerge in her mind as soon as she wakes up in the morning. Dreams or nightmares, iterative strokes that occupy her mental space, or stories, mythological and hybrid bodies, animals or humans populate her notebooks, which become a gateway to a world that resembles a psychoanalytical practice. Michèle Sylvander's almost unconsciously drawn strokes form light, almost clumsy sketches, presenting to the eye playlets straight out of the desires and fantasies, sometimes very distant, of the artist's unconscious.

As art and photography historian Michel Poivert writes, "When she wakes up, the artist grabs her notebook and pencil. While others warm up their muscles with improbable stretching movements, Michèle Sylvander prolongs the still somnambulic state of waking up, and lets her hand guide the point on the paper. Clumsiness is the hallmark of this state: a wandering yet continuous line scars the envelopes of half-human, half-animal figures, scenes emerge and expressions are defined. Everything comes together in a faun-like world."