The Skin of Memory

PASSING BY THE TREE, THE SKIN OF MEMORY

An exhibition by Nathalie Hartog-Gautier
 Alliance Française de Melbourne.

This body of work from Natalies Hartog-Gautier is a literal and visual narrative on her experience and relationsip with her Aunt who suffers from Dementia. According to the artist, her Aunt remembers very little of the past and to visit her is like entering another world. The exhibition shows her attempt to remember their time together.

When I see her or think of her I attach images which, to use Proust’s expression,“will break the spell”. My aunt doesn’t speak French anymore and from the new language she has created, I developed a set of poems based on our surrealistic conversation. They translate my emotion into written sounds and rhythms.The paintings of geometrical shapes are a representation of the space we live in but with illusions and distortions translating the world my aunt lives in.

To remember the everyday objects that were part of her life: she uses rubbings on paper such as the armchair she used to sit on and other pieces of furniture. These images and the fragile paper vessels she has constructed from cotton fibers containing balls of bright blue wool, carry their own memory of the passing of time. Remnants of a past life and the memories of things past. A tactile and intimate pastiche of her life and Natalies recherche du temps perdu.