Pierre Barraud De Lagerie

In 1971, the English composer Gavin Bryars was working with a filmmaker friend on a documentary about people living on the streets of London, in the Elephant and Castle area. Among the hours of unused rushes was a recording: a homeless man, never identified, singing a cappella a religious chant, Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet.

Listening back to the tape, Bryars noticed that the man's voice was naturally in tune with his piano, and that the first thirteen bars of the chant formed a loop. Touched by the sincerity and emotional power of this voice, he built a progressive orchestration around it: layer after layer of instruments were added to the looped chant, in a slow and restrained crescendo. The composition became one of the most significant works of English minimalist music.

In early 2022, Luigi Castiglioni, an art bookbinder, contacted me to discuss a publishing project centered around a very special object: musical scores. Through his publishing house, Luigi Castiglioni Editore, Luigi wanted to transform the use of this musical text, usually a working and study material serving as a support for musical performance, into an artistic work and a collector's item for bibliophiles. Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet is the first score published by his publishing house, in 120 numbered copies.

My task was to illustrate one of the 120 copies of this score book, copy number 7. This was not about printing or reproducing illustrations, but original drawings made directly on the pages of the book, subsequently bound by Luigi.

I started working on the illustrations at the end of summer 2022.

"Metamorphisme" is an exhibition project featuring a monumental drawing, ceramics, and a visual and sound installation.

Presented as an installation, the work combines drawing with monumental ceramic pieces by Simon Barraud de Lagerie and a sound composition by Nancy Mounir. The ceramics, distributed throughout the space, incorporate speakers broadcasting the sound composition. The sound propagates through the material, generating varied resonances depending on the shape, thickness, and placement of each piece, as well as the acoustics of the venue.

The fresco, the ceramics, and the sound function as interdependent elements. The drawing constitutes the starting point of the project, while the ceramics and sound extend its forms, rhythms, and tensions into physical and sonic space. The installation was designed in close relation to the architecture of the exhibition space: its height, dimness, targeted lighting, and natural reverberation are an integral part of the experience. Rather than proposing a fixed narrative, the work establishes a perceptive situation where matter, space, and sound coexist and mutually transform each other permanently.

The installation unfolds in the nave of the chapel, where a vast suspended structure, composed of an accumulation of survival blankets, occupies the central volume. Suspended as a single block, this reflective surface captures and fragments light, creating shifting reflections and a subtle shimmering effect as the viewer moves through the space. Illuminated by a combination of directional and ambient lights, the metallic membranes interact with both artificial light and the architecture, introducing a fragile and unstable material presence that contrasts with the density of the drawing and the mass of the ceramics.

Exhibition of the winners in the Galerie Vivienne of the Academy of Fine Arts for the Pierre David Weill Drawing Prize (Winner with distinction)