She began with embroidery, today called “textile art.” I understand that people thereby emphasize that this is an art just as painting is, but in the case of Hélène Duclos they miss something by erasing the word “embroidery,” suspending the act of embroidering, the patient concentration, the demonstration of fragility. When she began to paint, she abandoned none of that. She portrays figures in the confusion of their ceremonies, their incomplete hybridization with the animal world, creatures suspended in space, deprived of earth, roots exposed, deprived of water and sky. Her paintings, even the largest, are mosaics of miniatures, where the delicacy and precision of the brushstrokes recall that of the needle and thread. Hélène Duclos continues her art textile concurrently, perhaps to not lose this thread through her inner and geographical journeys from which she returns to embroider her paintings, outside time.
Patrick Cady
