Hortus Conclusus

[Solo show at the priory of Saint-Benoît-du-Sault]

Hortus conclusus is an inflorescence of thirteen white virgins. The ensemble is a gathering of plant and human reproductive organs. These thirteen clay creatures — clay being the matter with which the god Khnum makes the children he places in the wombs of mothers — hatch from blocks of earth. Vulvas, petals, penises, pistils, breasts, stems and other round bellies are fossilised here by fire.

The installation calls up rites both religious and primitive. Inspired by a representation of the Virgin Mary in an enclosed garden and by alignments of menhirs, it marks the beginning of a thinking about the myth of "the immaculate conception".