Michèle SYLVANDER

Michèle Sylvander is a visual artist who lives and works in Marseille. Until recently, she had not invested much in the field of drawing, but rather in that of photography and video production. The artist has established herself on the artistic scene through work that is close to subversive, to the reversal of values, with in particular a permanent questioning of issues of gender and social status. It was gradually that she got into the habit, in the morning as soon as she woke up, of drawing the first forms that emerged from her mind. Dreams or nightmares, iterative lines 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 psychoanalysis office. The lines drawn almost unconsciously by Michèle Sylvander form light, almost awkward sketches, presenting to the eye scenes straight out of the desires and fantasies, sometimes very distant, of the artist's unconscious.

As the art and photography historian Michel Poivert writes, “Upon waking, the artist grabs her notebook and pencil. While others warm up their muscles in improbable stretching movements, Michèle Sylvander prolongs the still somnambulistic state of getting up, and lets her hand guide the tip on the paper. From this state, awkwardness is the mark: an errant yet continuous line heals the envelopes of half-human, half-animal figures, scenes emerge and expressions are defined. Everything comes together in a faunal world.”