Anne De Gelas

“T., my lover and father of my son, died on 5 April 2010 of a brain stroke. He fell beside us on a beach at the North Sea. The violence of his death put me in front of a big void… a silence that echoed in my head only equal to the brightness of the blue sky which no planes crossed because of the ashes of a volcano in anger, my anger. 

To face that loss, I plunged myself into the work I had started more than 15 years before, which consisted in writing a diary, composed of drawings, texts, notes, collages and photographs. That diary is now focussed on telling about my suffering, but also about that surplus of energy that was bursting within me.

This work, which is also an artist's book, ‘An almost perfect day’ helped me to release the power of desire and the anger that was born in my despair.

In the photography, self-portraits very soon became a necessity, first because I needed to be looked at either by myself or by the camera which tried to replace the look of the loved one, but also because it was like a proof that I was still alive. My approach to self-portraits wants to be a mirror of a violence that befalls us. 

My work has always dealt with daily events both simple and moving which I wanted to highlight. This book ‘L’Amoureuse’ (edited by ‘Le Caillou Bleu’ in 2013) is both a continuation and a sudden stop.

Following this journey of mourning, I have started to work on ‘Mère et Fils’, focusing on the new reduced family composition, this face to face, this peculiar bond that unites us but also, on my side, on the permanence of femininity and desire.

In this series, the images reflect the complexity of the mother-son relationship, both complicity and violence, loneliness and tenderness, the pain experienced so differently for a son or for a woman 'in love', daily life that catches up with us, the years that pass and physical changes. For him, the transition from childhood to adolescence, for me the path in age, with its injuries engraving an array of lines - a life's story - deep into my skin.

The drawings are much present and very important for me, especially in the part ‘a face of lines’ (‘un visage des lignes’) which speaks more specifically of femininity and the need for tenderness.

In recent years my work presents itself more specifically in the form of the book, which mixes photographs and diary pages."