Juliette Dominati
“I like to think of my pieces as really small and fragile things that could go back on being unseen, useless, once put out of the show space.”
Interview by: Natalia Gonzalez Martin
Could you tell us a bit about yourself and your background? Where did you study?
I was born in Paris in 1990. I have been taking pictures with a film camera since I am quite young. When I was a kid, I was not able to look at the picture right away, and I don’t remember being interested by looking at it at all. I see now that it was more about the action, to stand in the landscape within the idea to take and keep something from the scenes around me, maybe in order to find a way to connect to it. I feel the same now with my smartphone. I keep on taking videos. Maybe it is a way to connect to one’s surroundings and to stand in the scenery, to feet bravely on your two feet with a camera stick stretched in the air! I studied Visual Arts in my hometown at the Beaux-arts of ParisCergy focusing on Painting and Theater.
Your work can be seen as sculptural collages, how are connections between objects born for your pieces?
I work on building a body of work more than independent objects. I like to think of my pieces as really small and fragile things that could go back on being unseen, useless, once put out of the show space. Most of them are fragile but not precious. Some have stronger qualities to remain artwork while others go back to trash /or studio to be re-used. I am more interested in the link between the objects, how they carry each other and create a world where hierarchies can easily be inverted between important and non-important.
Domestic Affairs, 2017
The constant combination of found objects with more traditional approaches such as painting brings questions regarding craft and the artistic process, could you talk a bit more about these two and how you combine them?
I often don’t use canvas and sometimes don’t even use paint, but I still continue to think as a painter gleaning images and composing. I extended my research into a wider discussion of forms, I record, store, save up sounds, films, fabrics and all kind of material. My occupation is now to create bounds within different objects and different medias. I practice painting through covering-up objects, I coat them, using ready-mades as to redeem them, I attach them one to another, trying to create a non-serious space, a space disrupted from the every-day life, where the rules are different, it’s about colours, dynamics, vitality.
Your work has a strong autobiographical element, what is the selection process of those experiences and how do they translate to your work?
I work with the material that surrounds me. I pick up things from my every-day life, I take notes, I re-draw scenes I have seen or conversations I heard, I take photos and videos, I use wood, fabric, what is available to paint and then I organise it into space. I build sensitive and intimate environments hoping that others can relate to it. Working in-situ with ready-mades objects already create a sense of déjà-vu for the viewer, a familiar sensation.
There is a theatrical, set-like quality to it, like a narrative, is about to unfold around the pieces…
The installations could be seen as emptied sets or immersive still life paintings. All inanimate and common place objects either natural or man-made. Still life paintings or photography share the feeling that something just happened or is about to. I like it when non-precious objects or moments acquire an archeological value. They become characters themselves. And maybe the viewer trying to reconnect them become a storyteller.
All I want is more more more, 2019, Image Courtesy PADA Studios
All I want is more more more, 2019, Image Courtesy PADA Studios
All I want is more more more, 2019, Image Courtesy PADA Studios
All I want is more more more, 2019, Image Courtesy PADA Studios
The Room Nextdoor, 2017
Tell us a bit about how you spend your day / studio routine? What is your studio like?
I start the day writing and drawing. Not too much sound, not too much action. As the day unfolds I start painting and moving around. I gather a lot of material, photos, videos, fabric, wood… I paint on all the things I find. It accumulates. On the good days, I get very exited as if I had found the evident storyline. On the next morning everything is to start over again, I feel the studio is too empty and I have to full it over with colors and ideas.
What artwork have you seen recently that has resonated with you?
The work Noah Purifoy an artist who created an outdoor museum in the high desert of Joshua Tree, California. More than 100 works of art created and placed on 10 acres of the desert floor including large scale assemblages, environmental sculptures, and installations. It is a small town, self-ruling, autarchical.
Is there anything new and exciting in the pipeline, you would like to tell us about?
I am working on a project in Iceland for which I am creating a narrative about a person who tries to calm the Elves and the Hidden People. A stone that was important to them has been stolen and the world is upside-down. I worked with an Icelandic folk artist , Toti Ripper who plays the lead role in this story. I am combining my work and his into one large scale installation that could be seen as a sculptural collage between his work and mine. All the objects in this installation relate to this story. For example I took rocks from the landscapes and painted them, I overheard conversations and these appear in my paintings, I took videos of people living their every day lives and some acting scenes I wrote. All of these elements are combined together along with the paintings of Toti Ripper. These objects come together to create a space where fiction can intertwine with reality.
All images are courtesy of the artist
Publish date: 24/10/19
