Works | olgatheuriet

About translation: please take in count the fact that Olga Theuriet’s work stands, among other particularities due to its way, near etymological matters of research and more generally of the domain of her everyday language which is french speaking. That's why choice is made, despite transmission complications that may be consequent, not to translate all the descriptive terms of the works to be consulted, as well as in some other parts of the website. Please use the contact form if needed.

Since 2021

PRÈS DU CORPS

Prior
Alongside the fields of architecture and monument, part of the lexical resources of the word stèle (stele) concerns botany: Central part of the stems and roots of vascular plants surrounded by the endodermis and including the pith, wood and bast as well as secondary libero-ligneous formations. (CNRTL french source)
The etymology leads to Στήλη, column, from στάω, to stand, Latin stare (stable).
On other part around the term tombe (grave) and with regard to fabrics, a question seems to remain about the form, infinitive or in the past participle, of a quality which is not tactile but visually assessable according to the vertical: the tomber, or tombé, which means something like fall, of the garment.

EMBROIDERY
Progressive embroidery of the cloakroom using a family-type sewing machine. Matricule on the back of each piece, worth title, date and signature. Work in progress, in which long term is one of the possible dimensions.
Through lines of stitches, of a relative regularity, the garment is "flattened": laid, not geometrically speaking, but as well as any writing. It acquires the status of a document. Returned entirely to the question of the non-wearable, garment is laid bare. In this way, and as any architecture can be, it presents itself as a supporting structure.
The sewing in this work tends to deconstruct the function of clothing; this singular consequence joins that of an unstitched clothing, without having been defeat. By the only guiding action of the hand and foot, sewing machine embroidery can here be described as a passive action. It involves two threads: one « from above » and the other « from below »; those two give to the result a front side and a back side. It acquires the appearance of a sheet.

Periphery
More generally, the manufacture of clothing constitutes an approach of the body necessarily linked to the defect; similarly, the dressmaker's gesture gives rise and temporality to non-measurable and more or less stable and temporary formal states: the outfit would be the question linked to these states. This is how a relationship can be built, over the days and uses, in the gaps that are often both tiny and gross between the garment on the one hand and the body and its representations on the other. These multiple deviations, by the fact that they first become sensitive to the skin, allow us to think about the blind territories that the outfit invests(*). Spaces that are alive and stubborn to take place, whose flattening here cannot be considered as ignorant.

(*) Georges Didi-Huberman, from original edition of La peinture incarnée:

[...] jacket, which I translate as vesture, a word from the 16th century that lends itself to hearing both investiture (which was also called vest) and clothing (for which we said, generically, jacket); and this gives “skin”, that is to say appearance, but also covering, secrecy. Vestir is finally said, at this same time, to “lower the eyelids”.

ASTÈLE

"A—" privative prefixe.
See also: splint, harness.

Documentation of a set of linens picked up during the daily walk(*).
Creation of a digital image of linens previously folded to the approximate dimensions of the device: scanner for A4 format documents. Printing of those files in black ink on papers themselves collected over the days.
This prefigures the question of the stele: a building whose geometry approaches that of the rectangle, a proportion that may be useful for the inscription of a body whatever the place and the method.

(*) Please refer to paragraphs below.

18-piece documentary work

Ink, papers (sheets and scraps of notebooks, silk paper), various sizes between 15 and 50 cm, 2021

Res/REM

Referring to the etymology, the french term rien would derive from an accusative Latin form. In this respect, it seems possible and evenly interesting to make use of the word in its only affirmative meanings.
Rien (nothing), from the Latin rem, accusative of res, which will have given chose, quelque chose (thing, or something).
Pieces of fabrics.
Picking, washing, drying, storage.
Ongoing work.
Edition of a book in 2023, 1 ex.

Daily walk of several hours in an urban route done twice a day for nothing, and according to the principle of returning on the path. This walk for nothing fabricates through its passive action an unperceived image, blind form of the work. A continuity takes place in a day time as well as in between days; it works also in a certain way into a day itself as it is a hole in the fabric, bordered by embroidery. Ongoing since 2015 approx.

Diary and correspondences to be continued. Since 2011.

2011 — 21

VÊTEMENT

The following repertoire allows to approach a ten years research into the necessities of the outfit, and related questions, by means of a particular attention paid to garment.
The edges of this approach may not draw the outline of an entire shape responding to the questions that have arisen. A website itself can not pretend to it. One may only "try to see", where the language escapes from without diminishing it, the construction — sneaking threads, seams in their temporary states — of a skin and its resistant fragility. One or more skins, in each of the fragmentations and the necessary deconstruction they call for, and which maybe will have been only adorned with denominations.

2010 — 11

ÉTUDE DE VÊTEMENT

28 pieces resulting of experimental self-taught context for the professional aptitude certificate exams for sewing, 2011 session.

I: woolen cloth, thermo-adhesive lining, chalk, thread (2010)
II: molding canvas(*), pen, pencil and fluorescent marker, thread (2011)

Fragments of a non-existent whole. Each piece isolates some part of the work leading to the manufacture of clothing, in the so-called rules of couture (as opposed to so-called industrial manufacturing). According to these rules, the work is being done by hand and by sewing machine.
Handwritten notes: name of the part studied; the sign "—O—" designates the main side of the fabric.

Threads are generally of contrasting colors for the purposes of the study. Basting threads remain in place.

CONSERVATION: Each piece is being kept individually folded in a plastic pocket for an A4 file.
The woolen pieces, blue in color, are weakened by times. Those made of molding canvas(*) remain in a good condition.

(*) undyed raw cotton canvas used during the so-called molding operation resulting in the drawing of the pattern on the canvas from the mannequin to the customer's measurements.

B&W pictures made in 2021, showing the unfolded state of the front and back of the pieces, with exceptions, for example the collars.