“I sew like some people recite mantras. I don’t decide anything in advance. Images emerge, without any particular coherence with each other, but they are there and I feel an urgency to give them substance. Sew, suture, close these wounds, graft one fabric onto another, but also “embroider” to give meaning, to sometimes testify to my deep desire to bring together the two cultures that inhabit me. Human tissue, psychic tissue, where the back and forth of the needle digs holes/empties through which my demons escape. Damaged, torn tissues… and my attempts to join the edges hollowed out by this gap which continues to open: the fault of being… hemostasis impossible in all cases” writes Barbara d’Antuono.

Turbulences

« Tormented by the contrary winds of untamable thoughts, I feel the tectonic shakes of this ever-changing world.

A small, determined people reside in my head: lost nocturnal visitors, dark thoughts wearing hats, two-headed zig, bird-woman, intra-cranial bestiary whose hybrid beings wait to be released.

Everything hangs by a thread: needle, scissors, I cut, I sew, I lay and layer, threads, fabrics, weave that I pierce, impulsive, repeated, compulsive gesture.

My hands get ahead of my thoughts.

Creatures on a black background, astonished, ripped out of my skull, frozen forever, married of bones and lace, flower bearer, laughing skeleton, when color devours intention, gives a festive look, joyful death on a turquoise background… thread, needle, scissors, fabric, weave that I poke holes in, I cut, I shape, I layer, I assemble.

Polymorphic beings that take up all the space, my nature doesn’t like emptiness, one on top of another, next to another, interlocking, sizing each other up, overlapping, back to back, face to face, frozen smiles, grimaces…, dialogue of the deaf in the clamor of the world, bad luck.

We’re entering a zone of Turbulences. »

Barbara d’Antuono, juin 2026

The tenderness of water

“This is the story of the Mother language

The history of letters that rise from the memory of women

It is the story of water, that of the first gestures of life and of the survivors

It is a collection of gestures attached to the memory of times

When a hand came to clean your childhood tears and wash your body from the noise of the world

The water whispered forbidden things to your thighs and

They were the most beautiful things of love embroidered on your bare legs;

They were dangerous things too

who spoke of the fire of men and the tenderness of water.

She said:

Come against me

I love you

Give me your hand so that I can pick your fingers

With my mouth

Your body belongs to you

No one has to decide for you

Be careful

Be careful

You are a girl

I’m not afraid of dying, the worst

This is for my children

Do you want thin ankles? Wear heels!

But how is your hair done today?

Do you remember your first time?

He once loved me

And the water continued to flow between you all,

Carrying the mother tongues,

Loving or terrible,

Taking with it the origin of the world

And all its cardinal points

You who come from this source, you do not yet have the floor

You are from this dark door where men disappear

Your mother lifts you up to breastfeed you

And they are masses of white, black and firm breasts

Which reach towards your mouth, hungry for the words to come

You drink this ancient milk that intoxicates you

You are immersed in the heart of this feast

And it makes you dizzy

Suddenly, from your mother arise all the mother voices

You go back to them

And from them arise all female words

Which grow in you and soon hold you upright,

Words that will soon exceed you,

Who remembers them all

And carry you above the waters.

These are flower letters that say the fields

Where you pick wild herbs

These are the big A’s of the pursuit of Love

*And the C’s of secrets between girls

Do you hear their laughter?

And later will come the R’s dug in the face

Aging women

And the words will cross the worlds in a whisper

It will be your turn to tell

The story of the mother languages ​​that carry you away

In the whirlwind of life and death.

“The tenderness of water”, Dominique Memmi, September 2024

 

The creatures of the mined lands

“The brutal and cynical news collided with my own concerns.

Strange, mischievous and disturbing creatures besiege my mind.

They seem determined.

I let them guide my gestures, mechanical with a repetitive, hypnotic, cadenced rhythm:

Scissors, threads, needles, seams, sutures, overlays, repairs…

They are embodied in the moment creating their story and tracing their way on the cotton weft.

I don’t know if it’s me who pulls the strings or they who lead the dance.

They tell of journeys without return, they speak of distant lands, of what unites us and what separates us, of our demons and our gods, of our sorrows, and of other possible shores.

They are my inner chaos, my reflection in the mirror, the sum of all my fears, my doubts and my hopes…

….the creatures of the mined lands.”

Barbara d’Antuono, May 2022

 

 

Penelope or Parque of modern times, Barbara d’Antuono sews by hand like others recite mantras and decides nothing in advance. She lets images arise without any particular coherence with each other, but to which she gives substance in a kind of urgency, in the form of a strip not drawn but sewn. The exhibition, like the eponymous book, covers seven years of this assiduous and patient work through nearly 30 textile works, real freeze frames made of the emotions and memories of the artist, like so many portraits of humanity. . Her meeting in Haiti with Baron Samedi and the mythology linked to voodoo, as well as the traumatic splashes of the 1986 coup d’etat and the abuses she witnessed, precipitated her into this need to say the unspeakable. Globe-trotter, she nourishes her work with her travels, particularly in Africa where she finds voodoo, and on the slopes of all the volcanoes of the world. Creator of the imagination, she thus gives birth under her fingers to a jubilant, dreamlike, ironic, carnivalesque and sometimes naive world. Impregnated with this tasty mixture, all his work condenses in a flamboyant baroque syncretism, where humor is never far away and Haiti always present.

In the book, the young Haitian author Kevin Pierre poses on these timeless images the poetic words of a contemporary commitment for the dignity of his country. Their exchange of threads and words speaks of the things of life and death, of ancient voodoo and the difficulties of today. To restore to the reader the evocative power of the author’s language, the texts are offered in a bilingual French/Haitian Creole version.

Barbara d’Antuono, a Corsican of Italian origin born in 1961, left France in the 1980s for the West Indies and Jamaica. It was in the artistic abundance of Haiti, where she remained for 5 years, that she was introduced to painting and sculpture, notably in the studio of the Haitian painter Ronald Mevs. The magic, her inner demons and the aesthetics of her work as a visual artist are revealed to her. She began her artistic journey with assemblages of wood and bone, collages, totems, fetishes… Babette El Saieh, daughter of the great collector Issa El Saieh, gave her her first chance to exhibit at the Olofson Hotel in Port au Prince. After several exhibitions in Haiti, she left the island following the 1986 coup. Back in France, she developed her own technique combining sculpture, painting, graphics, sewing, poetry and music. From 1995, she exhibited regularly in Paris, Germany…

She participated in several group exhibitions, including one in tribute to Wilfredo Lam at Unesco. Recognized by the Art Factory and Art de Rien galleries, she has exhibited several times at the Lavoir Moderne Parisien as well as at the Chapel of the College of Carpentras. In 2014, she presented a few magnetic paintings, textile paintings and fetish dolls in the collective exhibition ‘Follow my gaze’, which marked the birth certificate of L’oeil de la femme à barbe.

Kevin Pierre was born in 1993 in Port au Prince, Haiti where he currently lives. After classical studies, he trained in dramatic art – writing and acting – and in poetic writing. Actor, dancer, percussionist, he has already performed in numerous shows and festivals; he also hosts radio shows.

In 2019 he published Mak pye solèy – a first collection of poems on death, voodoo, the environment, love, sex. It was through the artist Catherine Ursin – who designed the cover of the collection – that he met The Eye of the Bearded Woman and Barbara d’Antuono. He will meet these three women for the first time in France in the winter of 2019, on the occasion of the exhibition of Haitian artists that Catherine Ursin organized in Lyon at the La Rage gallery and where she invited him to present her book.

 

EXHIBITIONS :

Mismatched creatures – Galerie Claire Corcia Paris

The tenderness of water – Galerie Claire Corcia – Paris

2024-2025

Zombis, le mort n’est pas une fin ? – Musée du Quai Branly Paris (oct. 2024-février 2025)

2022

Creatures of the mined lands – Galerie Claire Corcia Paris in partnership with L’œil de la femme à barbe

2021

Wandering spirits – Galerie Claire Corcia Paris in partnership with L’œil de la femme à barbe

2019

Out Sider Art III – Galerie Claire Corcia Paris in partnership with L’œil de la femme à barbe

International Textile art Biennal– Haacht Belgium

Textile landmarks – Collectif Fiber Art Fever! – Centre culturel André Malraux Agen

2017

Demons on the line – Galerie des Arts Ménagés Paris

2016

Imperceptible universes and removable universes – Galerie 3F Paris

2015

Removable universes – Galerie Monod Paris

Textile arts – Galerie N°1 Paris

2014

Retrospective exhibition Université de Rouen – Rouen

L’œil de la femme à Barbe – Paris

2013

Art Singulier Festival – Art en Seine Saint Aubin Les Elbeuf

2013

Galerie l’Art de Rien – Paris

2012

The city of wandering spirits – Galerie Chez Robert Électron Libre Paris

2011

Chapelle du Collège de Carpentras – Carpentras

Skyside metamorphosis – Exhibition and illustration of the novel by Mathias Malzieu
Galerie l’Art de Rien Paris

2010

Tightrope dreams – Observatoire au BHV – Commissaire Olivia Ruiz – Paris

Icons – Galerie l’Art de Rien – Paris

2009

The rule of I – Galerie l’Art de Rien Paris

2008

Memories of the future – Carnets de voyages – Cité Internationale des Arts – Paris

2007

Art Pluriel Fair– Rueil-Malmaison

28th Contemporary art Fair Viroflay

2006

Doll’s Art – Galerie l’Art de Rien – Paris

2005

Sculptures, paintings and objects – Galerie Art’s Factory Paris

2003

Sculptures, paintings and objects – Galerie Art’s Factory Paris

2002

Galerie Art’s Factory – Paris

2002

FNAC – Forum des Halles Paris

2000

The tree of magical spirits – Tribute to Wilfredo Lam – UNESCO Paris

1999

Kunsthalle  – Constance Allemagne

1999

Berlin Radio– Berlin

1998

FNAC – Forum des Halles Paris
ART’Tati – Galerie Art’s Factory Paris

1997

Creative women from the 18th – International Women’s day – Town Hall of the 18th Paris

1996

11th European artists Fair – Espace Château Landon Paris

1995

Galerie Treger – Paris