Sur Le Fil
French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Culturesfrance
Size: 90x128cm
Technique: Silkscreen
Edition: 40
2007
For two months, Carla Talopp was an artist-in-residence at the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou, a project supported by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Culturesfrance.
Carla's work constitutes personal and poetic responses to her transient vision of China. She, the foreigner, perceives what can be perceived when you are just passing through, like the tightrope walker on his high wire - solitude and the people around her, absence, the discovery of others, of another self, of other worlds. Beyond that, her inspiration came from her encounter with traditional Chinese calligraphy and painting, folklore and popular culture, street art, and red and gold dragon kites. The posters are a subjective attempt, an "impression" of China, a sensation of life. "These silk-screen prints all stem from drawings and calligraphies in Chinese ink, which I drew on rice paper during my residency in China. My words are an overlay and melt into the color and the composition."
At the end of her residency, she asked graphic artist and typographer Chen Zhengda to collaborate on her work. The gap between the two cultures leaves room for all sorts of imaginings. Images become their common idiom, the guideposts of their communication. Chen Zhengda manipulates abstract shapes to create a type of poster art that aspires to rationality. In this manner he sought to give "answers" to Carla's proposed titles and images.
The five silk-screen posters are printed on both sides: one side is Carla's work; the other side is the Chen Zhengda's "answer." It is an edition of 40, and they have been exhibited in China, France, Washington DC and New York City.
Carla Talopp is a French graphic artist from Paris. She attended ESAG Penninghen and the Rhode Island School of Design before graduating under the supervision of Michel Bouvet in 2005.