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artistic work

 

[....] By Hybridation, displacement and translation, Dominique Torrente reintroduces a popular textile technique, which formerly had a  function not only decorative, but also educational. The canvases needlepoint hung in the living room represented a window open on a field of plural representation, an era, a palette of colors, and imaginray. Juggling vocabularies, words, shapes and materials, the artist operates and alternative and territories crossings. Hybid Lexis involves meeting and recognition. The use of the canvas as an artistic material is the continuation of the artist's commitment to textile practices and a set of skills that have been deliberately neglected. The canvas becomes a critical tool towards a standardization of forms and speeches. Fragment by fragment, woven wool fibers colonize volumes with geometric silhouettes to denounce all restrictions and exclusions in the field of creation. The artist gives meaning and a place to the know-how whose history and development participate in the renewal of forms and ideas. Dominique Torrente, as well as many artists such as Joana Vasconcelos, Faith Ringgold and Wim Delvoye. draws on the heritage of craftsmanship to reintroduce a collective memory into art, to open the creation to a plurality of perspectives, references and stories.

Extract of the text Ars Lexis by Julie Crenn, historian and exhibition curator, 2014.

https://crennjulie.com/2014/06/09/dominique-torrente-ars-lexis/

 

 

 

 

 

 

Paradoxe n° 5, in Ut Pictura Poesis, words embroidered, 2010

 

 In this series, the words are closely tied up with the fabric and artistically arranged like a painting (the shape : a square, the colour : red, the material : textile fibre).
Text and textile, these two seemingly separate entities are, in fact, very similar, even from an etymological point of view (texere) and present complex links between the fibre, the warp, the weft and the process of reading and writing. The words are embroidered with a high-performance machine equipped with software allows for a precise finish of the warious elements (the number of stitches, the grain, the choice of the weave as well as the shaping of the embroidered letter). Similar to a decorative diagramme, the word seems to come to life, thanks to the fibres which make it stand out. It takes shape, offers itself, opens up and welcomes the beholder. The text becomes a space with numerous dimensions. The words, LINE, BLACK, SPACE, WHITE, FIGURE etc.. are associatde with both drawing and painting techniques. They encourage us to question not only their meaning but also what constitutes a pictural object today. The pairs (diptychs) also offer double meanings, paradoxes (the words BLACK LINE are embroidered in red) and refer to the extreme complexity of language and translate the realities of everyday life as well as our interpretations of these paradoxes. Hence we move from what can be seen to what can be read and vice versa. According to Kosuth "art is philosophy made concrete". By using one, single colour as close as possible to that of the background, the letter is made to stand out from the very texture of the fabric. The thread has its own radiance and the weave creates depth. The light, changing as the day moves on, transforms the word in a strange manner. It makes the word disappear, intensifies it, gives it substance or even modifies its degree of luminosity. Thus, the word seems to shift ; it either fades away or becomes more precise. Changing or disappearing, the word is indeed trans-formed. Our certitudes are shaken or new meanings come to light, and this, in itself, refers to the opaque and vulnerable nature of the word.

Dominique Torrente
translated by Lesley Corsi.