STATEMENT
For many years I have ben creating artist books. The source of the inspiration is double. In the books which go with texts (Virginia Woolf, Samuel Beckett, Arthur Rimbaud, Yasuo Kobayashi, René Pons, etc..) I am trying to accompany the writer, to be close to his universe. I try to follow the text like a road which guides me to a mental landscape. I do not illustrate the texts but accompany them with my own perception.
The second inspiration concerns painter books. Those books are generally without texts, inspired by my own life, done on notebooks bought on different countries or situations. They are more personal, more solitary. I use different techniques, etchings, linocut, painting, photography, fire, etc. which I like to experiment.
The painter books are unique copies, on the contrary of the literary ones, which are printed on 10 to 20 copies. The artist books are part of my work as a breathing, a way to access to my paintings.
BIOGRAPHY
Irène is a painter and printmaker who studied under Gregory Masurovsky at the American Center in Paris. The unique design of each book of their limited edition publications is meant to explore and enhance the dialogue between Irene’s artwork (paintings, intaglio or linocut prints) and the texts to which it relates. Depending on the project, the books are produced with digital printing or more traditional methods – for instance, the latest, Le Cantique des cantiques (‘The Song of Songs’), is handset in foundry type ‘Marcellin’ and currently being printed by Imprimerie Nationale.
