2020
« Jeanne, do you believe that you are in a state of grace? – If I am not, God will put me there; if I am, God will keep me there.
JOAN OF ARC (1412-1431), Rouen, Trial of Joan of Arc, 24 February 1431
I decided to work on the historical figure of Joan of Arc after watching Dreyer’s film « The Trial of Joan of Arc ». I had the idea of illustrating the trial by using the expressionist faces of people around me as models for the inquisitors.
I decided to work on the historical figure of Joan of Arc after watching Dreyer’s film « The Trial of Joan of Arc ». I had the idea of illustrating the trial by using the expressionist faces of people around me as models for the inquisitors.
I had them photographed and asked them to mimic the expressions and postures of the inquisitors in Dreyer’s film. I made portraits of them on circular canvases to be placed around that of the portrait of the actress who played Joan of Arc in Dreyer’s film.
If I chose to evoke Joan of Arc in an artistic work, it is my conviction that it is necessary to draw upon a certain spirituality from the past to attenuate harmful effects of technocracy which causes despair and nihilism in present-day in France.