From August 28 to 30, 2020, in Saint-Sozy, the painter Laurence Buaillon explores the universe of Virginia Woolf.
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Three weeks before “Readings, Haut-Quercy Book Festival”, the association Desire for books offers an exceptional weekend dedicated to the great writer Virginia Woolf. On the program, an exhibition of paintings by Laurence Buaillon and a meeting with Emmanuelle Favier, author of Virginia (Albin Michel). From 28 August to 30 august 2020 the Desire association for books Martel will introduce the paintings of Laurence Buaillon that we have met.
Your first encounter with the work of Virginia Woolf?
I was 19. I had in my hands “Jacob’s Room” which I read straight away. This way of writing fascinated me. I was struck by his ability to describe emotions in their intangible part, to give voice to silence, to everything that exists between words, to invent a new language.
And how does this echo your work and your thinking?
My painting comes from there. I wanted to give a look at the heroines of his novels, to extend the atmosphere that I found in his work. I wanted to represent in these portraits what is played out beyond the appearances of a face. The intimate and singular language that characterizes Virginia Woolf has been with me for so long that it acts like a little music in my painting. Whether the characters I paint are fictional or inspired by real people, they belong to a family that I built for myself in this founding meeting.
What do you seek to express in the paintings you dedicate to him?
For this particular exhibition, I wanted to surround him with some of the people who occupied a big place in his life. His sister Vanessa, his brother Thoby and Vita Sackville-West. I have represented Virginia from one of the most famous photographs available. In one of the paintings, I imagined her wearing a schoolgirl dress covered in writing, that of “Waves”.
Is there a Virginia Woolf “spirit”?
Maybe that’s it simply: an exploration of the intimate, of the incessant flow, silent and unspeakable.
SYLVIE BRANTY
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