After crossing Asia and the Middle East for 35 years, Pascal Monteil has found refuge in Arles, where she has lived and worked, since 2017. However, when she embroiders on her roof terrace, in the open air, the artist seems to be everywhere at once: on the road to Tabriz, in an Indian temple, facing the Wailing Wall , in a scene from Pasolini’s film… It must be said that his works evoke his various journeys, sometimes on land, from India to Iran, through Bangladesh and Japan, sometimes imaginary, at the crossroads of those who bring him to life, like painters. Egon Schielethe writer Philip K. Dicksculptor Valentine Schlegel or even writer-director Marceline Loridan-Ivens, Holocaust victims. Pascal teleported, here and there, between yesterday and today, from once to tomorrow, in imaginary scenes he embroidered by hand. Chaos meets ecstasy, apocalypse rubs against heaven and history rediscovers itself in its own image. “I like to imagine places where eras overlap and contradictory thoughts coexist. I immerse myself in the history of art, and invite people who inspire me, with all humility. It’s my way of telling poetry and the complexity of the world., said the artist. These scenes, Pascal embroidered without sketches, but thanks to the writing he had previously done on his red “Olivetti Valentine” typewriter, drawn by Etorre Sottsas, was received on one of his birthdays. “This is the starting point of the rug. For weeks, like a filmmaker, I describe my characters, what they wear or don’t wear, their emotions, their moods, their desires… When my vision is clear, I can then bring it to life on the canvas. . » Noah’s Ark, the secret life of a hotel, Jerusalem on the LSD, the yellow house Van Gogh…the beauty and chaos of the world are recreated under the productive imagination.

From one thing to another

While the embroidery artist blurs boundaries, breaks space-time and opens up fields of possibility, the equipment remains basic and ancient: old 19th-century hemp fabric, large mattress needles and Camargue merino sheep’s wool, dyed of course. The needle, like a brush, is free and sharp, the thread, like a tube of pure color. With the needle raised, Pascal embroidered, frameless, canvas on his knees, for about ten hours a day. A former student of Fine Arts at Villa Arson in Nice, Pascal worked for 20 years on new technology, without ever touching embroidery, or even sewing buttons. “While I was in Iran, I was able to meet a community of men who, on the terrace, repaired giant carpets. I then found the calm and slowness required of them. I was amazed this time. A few years later, following orders, I wanted to work on the exile of the Spanish Jews, in 1492. For that, I needed a nomadic technique, to be with them, on a journey, in a car, on a boat… I then took up the tapestry technique Bayeux, and embroidered for a year and a half. Today, this movement and this time is very important to me. », explained the artist. An iterative exercise in which he spreads his raw and ingenious writing, firmly embedded in his canvases, without ever losing the thread of his story.