Blood spurts into flames, each mouth, each sex, each wound is a crater; pleasure and pain merge together. The bodies have metallic frames, darkened, twisting in the fire; sometimes the blood doesn’t spurt but flows, accompanying the sensuality of a body bracing itself in the agony of its sensual pleasure. Catherine Ursin carves her bodies in a theatre of shadow play like that of Bali; she is a puppeteer painter who stirs diabolical figures inside us.
Black and ochre, some of her paintings are deprived of life red with blood and fire, but death only dominates in the appearance of a skull. The bodies generate roots, the hair of a buried body stands on end like a tree and this luxurious fertility is that of life. The erasure of red leads me to my childhood pleasure in discovering the woodcuts illustrating the books of the collection jaune ocre published by Arthème Fayard. Catherine Ursin’s painting then has me sit down and I listen to it tell me about the roots of its creation.Patrick Cady
