An artist of memory and matter in Saint-Pair-sur-Mer

Véronique Attia

Portrait of a local artist

Véronique Attia’s studio is just a stone’s throw from the sea, in a century-old house in Saint-Paul where a hat shop, a tea house, a hairdresser’s salon and other small businesses have all taken up residence. The artist set up her studio here in 2015, a few feet underground, in a flint cellar that she sees as full of telluric and symbolic resonance.

Par Nathalie Thébault

Meeting

How long have you lived in Saint-Pair-sur-Mer?

There was my first studio in 2011: a small room facing the sea, where Le Rayon Vert is today. Then, in 2015, this house, covered in black Briare enamel, which has been my exhibition and work space for 10 years now.

Why did you choose this region?

The land and the sea close at hand, just a little dose ofauthenticity to break away from the formatting that is becoming the norm, that suits me fine. And then, here, people are welcoming, open and sometimes curious – in the good sense of the word. My studio is always full of unexpected and wonderful encounters that fill me with joy. I feel lucky to be here. The power of the sea, the variations in light and the peaceful rhythm of life give me the impetus to create. When my work resonates, when it moves from my studio to other homes, everything takes on its full meaning.Art touches people’s souls.

Artistic career

How did you get into design?

The beginnings of my adolescence were marked by decisive encounters: the young people I hung out with wrote poetry, painted, and tried to distinguish themselves, in one way or another, from the ordinary world in which we lived. The beauty of words, signs, colours and mythological and prehistoric tales stirred my first emotions! I began to paint my first canvases and inks in my bedroom, which I used as a refuge. My love of literature led me to study Modern Literature, followed by 5 years in Alicante. It was then that I discovered the great writers of Spanish and South American literature… This heritage continues to fuel my imagination to this day. I took up painting quite late. I needed time, space and a return to intimacy. When my professional and family life gave me the opportunity, I devoted myself fully to it. I quickly realised that I needed to do my research on my own, to explore things on my own. This forged a very personal approach.

Memorial art

How would you define your artistic work today?

An‘art of memory’ would perhaps be the most apt definition, in line with my own history. Ever since I was a child, a memory that I didn’t live through has been with me: the memory inherited from my father, who was forced to leave Algeria. This nostalgia, passed on in silence, feeds my work. In old and forgotten materials – canvas, lace, tulle, textile scraps – I discover the possibility of rebirth and reconnection with the past. I don’t see myself as a ‘salvage’ artist. If you think about it, I work with very few materials. My studio is far from being Ali-Baba’s cave! My fabrics are fragments, carriers of forgotten gestures, involuntary deposits, which for me have become relics of an erased everyday life, a kind of pre-verbal memory woven into the material, just waiting to emerge in the form of stories. Similarly, preserving the colour of the first firing of the clay, evocative of fossils and dust, is part of this quest for origins.

Assembly

Your works seem to be inhabited, halfway between sculpture, painting and poetry...

Over the last few years, I’ve gone from painting mixed with textile collage to creating terracotta sculptures adorned with fabrics marked by the passage of time. Assemblage has become a matter of course.Clay has also allowed me to infuse my figures with both fragility and strength. With minute touches, I try to sublimate the ‘leftovers’ of everyday life to create an aesthetic of wear and tear and the sacred. My work is a form of poetic resistance to oblivion. It conjures up buried stories, fragments of memory, close to myth or symbol.

What about tomorrow?

My career has led me to take part in many art fairs, including the Salon d’Automne (Paris), Art en Capital (Grand Palais) and the Salon des Beaux-Arts (Carrousel du Louvre), while at the same time continuing to distribute my work nationally and internationally (Tokyo, Beijing, Tel Aviv, Tunis, Morocco, Jersey, etc.). I am also very grateful for the support and commitment of certain people who have highlighted my work through various exhibitions, and with whom the dialogue continues to this day. I attach a great deal of importance to theexhibition space, which must resonate with my artistic approach, and I am always open to proposals along these lines.

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