One of the conditions of participating in the Madlab residency in May ’25, was to produce a piece of work using the oyster
crates provided by the Tabourriech Oyster company. I chose to use one crate a day as a support for a series of works called “Île Singulière”, the title of a famous poem by Paul Vallery who himself was born in Sète.
I would sit on the jetty late at night and stare at the “Mont St. Clair” which was covered with shimmering street lights and a functioning lighthouse and try to etch the scene in my memory. The following morning I’d begin the day painting into the crates the scene from the night before, using only porcelain slip and blue ink. A simple exercise that became more interesting the more I did due to a build up of numerous memories of the same scene.

Images:
01 – 11 The sequence of oyster crates, all using porcelain slip and blue ink
12 – View of Sète and Mont St. Clair