"This is my favorite song to dissociate to"

<p>Author’s note to the reader:</p> <p>I am delighted to write a text on the practice of the French artist Camille Blatrix. Before this commission, we had not worked together or even met. I had seen his work online, so to gain a substantial understanding of Blatrix’s practice, I needed to experience his work in real life and spend time with his sculptures. Doing so would help me to dip into the spaces around his practice and to look directly at the artwork in a way that could not be done in an exhibition setting or via documentation. So when we did a studio visit in preparation for this text, I asked to borrow an artwork. Blatrix generously agreed to loan me <em>Waiting for Someone</em> (2021), a sculpture from his personal archive.</p> <p>My original plan was to install the artwork in my studio so I could think about it in my workspace and study the piece during ‘work hours.’ I wanted to write a text with an emotional connection to the artwork. Sharing my office with an artwork means that I need to take it into account in a way that I could not do in an exhibition. I have always found that artworks near to me reveal themselves in ways that I would miss if I didn’t visit them or attend to them regularly. I was curious; would a sculpture like Blatrix’ allow me to have such an experience or would it keep me arm’s length? Instead, Blatrix suggested that I hang it at home, where I could encounter it in different lights and abundant states of being (tired, rushed, happy, content, angry, and bored), which I indicate in the following text via emoticons: O_o half-awake, |‑O yawning, (@_@) amazed, ^_^ happy and (-_-)zzz sleeping. In the end, my husband and I installed the work in our bedroom as it’s the best spot to look at it as I am often here helping my son get to sleep. The natural daylight in this room is also the most beautiful, and as I write this, spring is turning into summer. The room provides a supportive backdrop, connecting well to Blatrix’s use of light, sightlines and so on, as I will go on to discover in the paragraphs below…</p>