Le mannequin, la photographe et la guerre Painting

From his childhood, Lee Miller (1907-1977) posed nude for his father. She went to study in France where she became the companion of the famous photographer Man Ray. Of infinite beauty, she will be both a model but also a fashion photographer (Man Ray signs his photos!) and surrealist photographer. In 1942, she became a war reporter and followed the GIs from 1944 to 1946, photographing the horrors of the concentration camps and the daily lives of the fighters living alongside them. At the liberation, David Scherman will take the famous photo of Lee Miller bathing in Hitler's bathtub, the day he commits suicide in his bunker. Plagued by a history of sexual abuse and post-traumatic syndrome, she sinks into alcohol and depression, but will nevertheless continue to work more sporadically for Vogue magazine. "Memento mori: even cathedrals are not eternal." My painting is as much to read as to see. It evokes the reminiscence of being. How to retain what escapes? Can we resign ourselves to oblivion - the very oblivion of famous women who, through their commitment, often their resistance, have marked our history? The title of the series certainly contains part of the answer. It is thus well beyond the mimetic representation of portraits and bodies that I question memory. My painting is posed, in movement, stretched, faded, making any representation appear or disappear. All this gives an expressive dimension maintaining a barely revealed relationship with literature and photography...