Art Mandat Residency, France

Artist in Residence 2016 at Art Mandat, Les Perles, Barjols, Var, Provence.

Installation work and participation in Exposition “La Peau”

Barjols is a rural medieval town in Provence. It was a thriving centre of the leather industry for centuries , thanks to its plentiful sources of fast flowing water.

After WWII the leather industry gradually moved to China. Barjols went into decline and the last tannery closed in the 1980s, leaving a town and community running into dereliction. The flow of water that made the industry so successful is now washing away the traces of its contamination and nature is reclaiming much of the ground with lush fecundity.

As the tanneries are being reinvented as artists’ living, working and gallery spaces, humans are forced into an accommodation with the more dominant forces of nature.

The paintings and drawings made here relate to the site and history of the Art Mandat studio, located in one of the semi-derelict tanneries.

Read more about works The Scrubbing and Transcendence