Just a single word !

Ever since 1994, Brigitte FAODER has been passionately interested in calligraphy. She mixes poetic, aesthetic and political inspiration, and draws on her experience in Lebanon in the 1980s and in Palestine in the 1990s. Calligraphy is for her a free and infinite space for expression.

Using techniques, materials and styles of varied calligraphy, Brigitte FAODER dismantles and reassembles the world through a word, an idea or a concept. Calligraphy is for her both handwriting and painting, it is a place in which the alphabet is raised to the status of an idea in pictures. Brigitte FAODER always expresses through her work the primacy of the « word » in the world. Whether it stands alone in its uniqueness or whether it is constantly repeated, it is a painting of the word in which the idea is more important than the image or the word is so important an image, a moving image.

I would not describe myself as a calligrapher, but rather as a painter who uses handwriting.

Calligraphy implies a degree of order whereas my first view focuses on the aesthetics of a word, its silhouette, the combination of letters (joined, free-standing, long, curved, dotted). This first approach – one purely of form – allows me to envisage the type of writing and the overall composition. I prefer not to choose the word or phrase; I like to have it suggested to me or imposed upon me. This keeps me aloof from the intellectualisation of the subject, which I try to avoid as much as possible. This does not imply that the word’s meaning is irrelevant – quite the contrary – but I prefer to allow myself to be led and to convey the emotion of the word’s symbolism intuitively (thinking ahead of the desired effect according to the word’s meaning and symbolism is like a straitjacket to me, which can only lead to clichés).

I move freely across the canvas or paper, playing with colour, light, texture, backgrounds, superimposition – be it simple or multiple – collages (in inks, acrylics, glues, chlorine, paper or lace).

I do not seek academic perfection. I use a word, knead it, stretch it, compress it or blur it in order to extract from it all the emotion that overwhelms me.
Selection of personal exhibits:


- Gaza House of Culture, Palestine (1997), organised by the Ministry of Information and the Union of Palestinian Artists

- « Le bouffon » in Draguignan in the Var, France (1998)

- “Chez Pascal » in Saint-Raphaël in the Var, France (1999)

- International Festival of Handwriting in Théoule-sur-mer in the Alpes Maritimes Region, France

- Cultural Centre of Boulouris Saint-Raphaël, France in the Var (June 2000)

- Egyptian Cultural Centre, Paris, France (September 2000)

- « L’écriture en fête », Médiathèque de Fréjus in the Var, France (October 2000)

- «Sanabel » Arab-Swiss Intercultural Exchange in Lausanne, Switzerland (November 2000)

- Pretoria South Africa (2001-2002)

- Hébron “Associations d’échanges culturels Hébron-France (2003)

- Ramallah/Palestine al Hallaj Art Hall – The leage of Palestinian Artists (2004)

- Tokyo/Japan 2004