The dynamic of the parental square, 92 x 153 cm, acrylic on canvas, 2014
The development of the infans’ mythic fabulations is determined inside the frame of the parental square by the mother, the father, the baby and the other (the society). This mapping is of course too geometrical and its equilibrium – or unbalance – depends on the dynamic and tensions between the imagos and roles of the actors.
I tried therefore to express here these dynamics showing that the mother maintains her intense link with the baby, but that the new born world takes the lead, meanwhile the father appears aside, under the influence of the other, which will gain prominence, but keeps a lateral power at the beginning in comparison with the biological determinants.
The chaotic stage which emerges with the birth starts immediately troubling this nice matrix, and will for sure never fully disappear, even in the adult stage. Myself being born in October 1941 in Paris occupied by the Nazis, l for sure keep in my unconscious memory a deep inscription not only from my own emotions due to the biological chaos which overwhelmed me at the time of my birth, but also of my parents scared by the Second world war. I marked them by saturating the rectangle of the canvas with black disordering threatening shapes. Other parental squares may look much less dramatic.