Côté cour, côté jardin
Back against the purple stonework, at an hour when the garden retained little more than its outlines, what spectacle was there still to behold? The grain was already resting in the granaries, and the crickets grumbled at the meagreness of the world. It was as though the earth, having put away its wonders, had left to the mind the task of enchanting us. Then, along the brown path, a lantern flickered. Ahead of a weary man whose eyes, from having seen too much, had gradually drawn his whole body forward.
Three times the weary man stopped along the way, pausing to rid himself of some torment beneath his grey cloak. And at each halt, from one of its folds slipped a snake, which began to crawl behind him. At the third, he turned. At once the snakes broke their procession and scattered into the grass. He watched them disappear, neither chasing them away nor calling them back. After a moment, the weary man resumed his journey. His light receded with him, growing smaller and smaller until at last it became indistinguishable from the final glimmers of the night.
On September 6, 2026, LESSIA took part in the 11th edition of the Balade en Arts et en Musique in Maisons-Laffitte. For the occasion, thirteen of her paintings took over the interior of a house on Avenue du Château. It was a singular setting, where the works mingled with furniture, objects, and the everyday life of an inhabited home.
Green belongs naturally to beginnings. To young shoots, as much as to fruit still waiting to ripen. Inside the house, it had settled into an enclave of its own, where several paintings came together around the garden, innocence, and the earliest part of life. Three faces appear there, each offering a different way of inhabiting that age. Their eyes are still closed to what they do not yet know. Outside, fruit and animals beckon with the first stirrings of curiosity, through which one begins to discover the world and one’s own place within it. Even the neatly aligned shoes seem to learn their steps from one another, following those who came before along a path whose beginning has long since been forgotten.
When the sun gives way to the stars, it is time to return indoors. To seek the warmth of the hearth and watch the shadows dance across the walls. This is where several portraits of women seem to have lingered, so deep in thought that their ideas almost become visible on the wall opposite. Each face is answered by an apparition, desired in one instance, dreaded in another, as though painting had separated the dreamer from her dream only to bring them face to face.
The portrait no longer presents its subject as though observing her features were enough to know her. Instead, it opens a passage into her thoughts, allowing what occupies her mind to take shape around her. It is no longer the woman who offers herself to view, but her world that unfolds beyond her. She remains still while her thoughts drift away, cross paths, and gradually take possession of the room.
And then there were the horses. Ten of them awaited their first outing: eight small enough to have once fit in the palm of a hand, and two that had grown far too large for that. Red and green, toy or flesh, they gallop across vast plains while their riders keep their bare legs firmly on the ground. The rhythm of their steps sets the pace for long, sleeping explorations. They venture far in search of what daylight leaves behind: lost faces, homeless desires, and those ancient stories that pass from one sleep to another without ever finding an end. They run where distance can no longer be measured, where memory may precede encounter, and where tomorrow sometimes borrows the features of yesterday. The whole night belongs to them.
Day may well return. Somewhere, the horses are still running. Perhaps all it takes is to close one’s eyes to hear their hooves still beating in the distance, somewhere across the city…
