Normand Hamel
paper skin: collage studies towards a new “Guernica”
From April 26, through the run of A PLAY FOR THE LIVING IN A TIME OF EXTINCTION
There is a fall ahead
ahead of even the realization that we are already elsewhere
an explosion an expulsion a shattering a scattering
A dizzying asymmetry
Each piece is an instance
a portrait of my agitation
clashes of light and of darkness
Amalgamated towers of coloured cardboard
disseminated strata on the floor
like a garden
history repeats itself like a garden
Follow the impulse of the moment
grounded, accentual, a dance, a ritual
measure cut butcher
design with a blade, several blades
Chaotic scattering, explosion, like windows shattering
vaporize the glue, imprint directly onto canvassed paper
read, see the signs, the forms
gather unmake fragment stack up glue back together
repair the pile
Dig again
look for figures, for bodies
images appear disappear
inciting attention, interrogation give them form meaning setting
Thus have these works or paper skins been created
some mounted on bamboo shoots
like vestiges or trophies
from on safari, from on the hunt
– Normand Hamel April 2022
Trans. Fanny Dvorkin
