Painter Eugénie Paultre reflects on her residency at Damien Hirst's
workshop
Matter of Life is the story of a six-month residency from French
painter, poet and philosopher Eugénie Paultre written and illustrated by
the artist and published in a colorfully illustrated paperback book.
In the spring of 2018, Paultre relocated from her studio in Paris to a
workshop in the English countryside. Immersed in her practice with line
and pigment, this intensive residency allowed the artist to enlarge the
scale of her paintings and work on large canvases up to four meters
tall--an assignment which presented physical as well as philosophical
confrontations between the artist and the blank canvas. Paultre's
abstract works feature carefully selected lines of color that create
beautifully balanced and evocative paintings.
Matter of Life showcases a remarkable new series of contemporary
paintings and features text written by the artist with ruminations on
color and its language as well as reflections on art, and by that very
fact, on matters of life.
Recalling her personal encounters--from her conversations with artist
and poet Etel Adnan and notes from the poetic works of Stéphane Mallarmé
and Charles Baudelaire to observing antagonisms of the modern world and
moments of clarity in view of natural landscapes--Paultre shows a
profound connection to the world around her and, in this book, considers
what it means to make something of life and to do something worthwhile.
