Le risque de se faire

Le risque de se faire - Les Drapiers, Liège Bedsheets, bandages, soft covers, leather and stitches - the work of Jot Fau unfolds mainly through her gestures of wrapping things in and tying them together. It’s a process of protecting, of hiding, but perhaps also of revealing the essence of seemingly disparate objects; transcending them beyond their contextual characteristics. Discarded plastic objects from hers or other people’s childhood, personal relics from friends as well as found organic matter and flea market treasures from different era’s are given new skins, equipped to inhabit the coherent universe of the artist. She works almost exclusively with existing material, in the conviction that objects in themselves are histories, they are lives of their own. Within this belief, the objects we surround ourselves with become companions for the life trajectories we carve out for ourselves. Concerned with memory, with trauma and with care, she sets out to find refuge amidst softness. Fau approaches the human body and soul as permeable entities, who can thrive and survive by letting themselves be impregnated by the objects and occurrences they meet on their path. To be porous in order to learn and grow. The deficit in our self-understanding or self-acceptance could be bridged by acknowledging what and who surrounds us, the situations we land in, the things we find along the way. A series of encapsulated worlds are hung side by side. Intimate bookshelves - wrapped in cotton and wool - bearing souvenirs from various walks of life. Their coming together often occurs alongside obscured photo’s or embroidered texts, elevating them into allegorical compositions, akin to opaque dreams. Sensuality and sexuality meet with a longing for comfort and support. But the wrinkled sheets and exposed body parts might as well exist side by side with nostalgic recollections hinting at children’s games and toys. These remarkable setups stir primal associations, tapping into a logic that is hard to access with the rational mind, and even harder to resist with the depths of our unconsciousness. As archetypes, they remind us of universal dream and thought patterns that tie humankind together - our bruises and coping mechanisms are more alike than we suspect. A fragmented close-up of a human hand holding the cushioned hand of a doll, in a gesture of mutual understanding and support. A panel wrapped in tissue adorned with branches of a chestnut tree, each one of them dressed in woven cotton thread - made human-like, taken care of. Works like these form the backbone of Fau’s new body of work. It’s about the sacredness of taking care of, and being taken care for. An animistic way of being in the world: living with things in a way that acknowledges the life they hold themselves. About mutual care. The second room is set-up as a place of rest, a place for being. A new series of benches - wrapped with cushions and leather in some places, carved out in other places - invites bodies to sit and merge. The artist has engraved patterns and drawings into the wood, allowing for the material itself to impose its own will in how it received these manipulations. And in turn, the resting body will also be imprinted by these drawings. The scars of our souls draw patterns into our personalities, into our relationships with the world surrounding us.