In Âme—Vie, the word Âme is inhaled and the word Vie is exhaled, in an assumed reference to Bachelard’s breathing dialectic of life and soul: “In this total submission to the aerial imagination, we will hear the two words uttered in the breath itself, before thinking about them, the two words: life and soul — life breathing in, soul breathing out. Life is a word that breaths in, the soul is a word that breathes out.” (in Gaston Bachelard, L’air et le songes)

From this double standard of breathing, the image emerges and oscillates, uninterruptedly, between the first breath that animates the being and the last breath that frees itself from the body. Breathing is projective matter, because it refers simultaneously to the creative impulse and the tangibility of the breath that carries an image.

Contorno Aparente, 2021, Exhibition Room, Faculty of Fine Arts of Lisbon University