review PALINDROMIC PROJECT

‘ PALINDROMIC PROJECT ‘ – hybrid paintings ready-to-wear

‘AN UNKNOWN LADY IN YELLOW’ – mixed media/recycled inlaying parts of clothes, 100X100 / 2006

‘UNCOMFORTABLE ESMERALDA’ – mixed media/recycled inlaying parts of clothes, 100X90 / 2006

‘GOLDEN’ – mixed media/recycled inlaying parts of clothes, 98X78 / 2006

‘THEODORA’ – mixed media/recycled inlaying parts of clothes, 98X98 / 2006

‘UNWERABLE STELLA’ – mixed media/recycled inlaying parts of clothes, 100X80 / 2006

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LINKS:

CoCo/Computational Couture
MEDIA RUIMTE
NANORESEARCH

EXHIBITION:

Designers Trail MODO BRUXELLAE at ALICE GALLERY, Brussels -october 2006

AD!DICT in the LABSHOP in Maasmechelen, Belgium – 2006/2007

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The ‘Palindromic Project’ is a combination of the professional experience I have gained in the fashion industry as well as my passion for painting.

I have attempted to explore different combinations, constructing a ‘hybrid’ by taking into account the basic premise (of paintings and items of clothing) and the very (bare) elements (2D and 3D, combination of textures…) as well as the history / context of specificities of these 2 media.

Paintings / ‘Prêt-à-porter’

On reflection of my experiments, these paintings were created principally from second hand clothes and salvaged material.  In some of them, I used clothes that I had altered in order to re-shape them and then mould them to the desired look.

In order to create my canvas, I used the patterns & the process of ‘made to measure’ with the model just like in the actual making of clothing.  Therefore, the painting (2D object) is made to fit the model of the item of clothing.  3D object et ‘Prêt-à-porter’ (ready to wear)

Technology / Craftsman / Recycling

I made use of technology for my work.  My pictures are made up of photos which are firstly worked on the computer, then images ( A4 size, sheet by sheet ) are transferred on (with an iron)  and altered by adding more paint.

Won’t a painting of a computer and its interior view of circuits become a present day icon in years to come?

The frames (the ‘surroundings’ of the canvas) act like something that has been pushed out of the of clothing, like a some sort of mutation.

At the same time, the technology today still does not allow us to create embossed or raised surfaces like in the picture, so this is the effect the clothing achieves. (See the example “Meat Pattern” and “Foris”…)

Some of the other prints that I created by computer, like “Meat Pattern”, are a humorous vision of our desire of consumption confronted with the image of daily beauty and our bodies.  Are we wearing meat or are we becoming meat?

At the same time this combination and the choice of an image of meat result in a strange hybrid, organic and purposefully “weird”.

Tie and Dye: is the term given to material due to the technique used to create it.In the analogy between ‘dye’ and ‘die’, I associated it to a landscape of crooked trees and a skeleton. (See the picture “Tie & Die”)

The background of the picture “Foris” (‘outside’ in latin) has been pixelised and reproduced  on a bigger scale which gives an image of multicoloured patches leaving intact a clear vision of a landscape featuring forest (a view from a distance).  The form integrated in this painting takes up this idea of stains which are enlarged and thus become abstract.

Body

The human body is sometimes absent in my images but it can form part of the painting being carried/worn.

In some of the other pictures, its presence, or its absence, is insinuated by means of the clothing or the shape.

At the same time, there is a notion of comfort and discomfort to wear an object, such is the case in “Uncomfortable Esmeralda” where the picture is difficult to wear because one has to put one’s face in it, resulting in a crushing effect.

Humor & Installation What is the role of the painting today?

To be hung up on the wall or why not to walk around in the street with meat?  Can paintings not also perform other functions?

‘How to transport a painting/a canvas?’ could be ironically considered as a humorous vision of a painting ‘in the flesh’! Ready to wear like an item of clothing as the clothing is secured into the painting, here we have a play on words on the term ‘prêt-à-porter’, which means literally, ‘ready to wear’ in French however ‘porter’ also means in English ‘to carry’.

It’s strange but don’t we all have memories?  Some images of our lives saved in our heads?  When we walk around, we see landscapes and pictures and at the same time our own images in our heads.  So why couldn’t we watch those paintings wandering around in the space like men do with their own thoughts?

Dimension

The portraits “Portrait of a Lady in Red” and “Portrait of a Lady” make reference to paitings from the Renaissance era: the view of profile, the image of a woman on a flat surface and the presence of clothing…. This era encouraged me to accentuate and explore the two dimensions of these two media: painting (2D object) and clothing (3D object) and to mix them together.

Ephemeral

I have always been interested in the impermanence of things

How long would a painting withstand the tests of time?

And those carried out with the technique of transfer?  They are going to wear out, become unstuck… like an item of clothing prêt-à-jeter (ready to throw away) which gives way to a new line the following season? Perhaps we shouldn’t wear it but frame it and hang it on the wall.  Just ‘prêt-à-regarder’ (ready to look at).  Hanging it on the wall as if it were disassociated from its function and its relation to the body.

2006