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mon papa et moi*, 07.1999
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Hereby you will find a picture of *my papa and me, or as I probably started to formulate it at the time: mon papa chéri d’amour que j’aime de tout mon coeur*.
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One can read 1999 in the back of the picture: no month, no specific date, just a year. Maybe I just turned two at the moment when that picture was taken? I was born in 1997, in July 97. I have this distinct memory of my parents bringing me every second of July, in the morning, to the living-room where bright sun rays would shine onto the wooden floors and bounce back to me, warm up my face. I barely remember any of the gifts I would get on that occasion… yet, till this day, I have a distinct memory of how it felt to wake up with my father’s heavy and theatrical voice singing
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“LANG ZAL ZE LE-VEN,
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LANG ZAL ZE LE-VEN,
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LANG ZAL ZE LE-VEN IN DE GLO-RI-A”,
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how it would be followed by my stroll of laughter. I would run towards the living room where I would feel the morning sun embrace me from all sides and experience a deep delight: that of being cared for by my family.
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There are a few points that should get your attention as it got mine.
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The blurriness of what should be a static background. This white saturation coming in from the outside through the windows, making it almost impossible to tell if it was a sunny day or a very cloudy one? Our central, yet badly framed position in the middle of the picture. The fact that it looks like we have been interrupted in a very important discussion as we both make this annoyed… uncomfortable face? In such a coherent way too.
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Most of the items you can see in the space are shadows, undecipherable shapes, hidden in the contrast of the light.
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My mother decorated the living room in pastel colours, light yellow and different greens, some brighter than others. A comforting palet you can find on the curtains next to the windows and the checkers of the armchairs.
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The blurriness of the picture makes the curtains blend with the trees outside, as if we were in a garden on the first floor of our building. As if anything above the wooden shiny floor were branches with beautiful green and yellow leaves, young flora blooming out from the sun at the start of the summer.
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1999 can be read at the back of the picture: no month, no specific date, just a year. Maybe it was at the start of the summer, when I just turned two? See, my father has a reddish face, the kind he gets whenever exposed to the sun, due to its vitiligo. A bright coloured face that always gives him this very kind embarrassed look. When actually his pigmented skin gets very tanned, a crust-like colour, the same as a well cooked brioche. A feature I later inherited from him.
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As a kid I had quite a pale skin. You might notice that the contrast between my legs and my face shows that I also have been sun kissed already on that year.
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Who is behind the camera? I assumed at the start of this redaction, it must have been my mother. Now, I have a doubt. It must have been my brother. Don’t you think?
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At the time he was around five, maybe just turned six! It would explain the unusual motion of the picture, that only a naive and clumsy touch could capture. The height of the picture as well, slightly down, quite close to us, yet my father’s head is cut at the top. It could explain our awkward facial expression: my father acting surprised as my brother eagerly grabs the camera and captures us with confidence. And my playful pointing at, triggered by what my big brother might be up to. Probably eager to do the same, wanting to mimic my older siblings’ every move. Let me know what you think about that.
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Because, sure, I’d like to imagine my brother is the author of this great portrait. One that shows the greasy closeness and dynamic I always had with my father. One in which he has always given me the space to be as loud, strange, weird, awkward as I could be. Where I wasn’t expected to smile pretty for a picture but rather BIG. Damn, my dad has put me in bins in the metro of Paris, just for the sake of it, just because it always was a good laugh.
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For mon papa chéri d’amour que j’aime de tout mon coeur and his kind support to the oddest and loudest parts of myself.
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*My dear lovely dad that I love with all my heart
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Written between 14.03.2022 and 03.04.2022
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