Residency at Casa Julfa, Montmorillon, May 2024
I’m back from a month in France, first attending a residency at Casa Julfa in Montmorillon and then a long weekend exploring Bordeaux. It was simply wonderful - time spent solely creating, painting, foraging, walking and exploring. Initially I wanted to spend time getting to know the town and surrounding countryside before starting painting. To immerse myself in this new landscape, as well as finding out the best places to collect local natural pigments. Montmorillon has an ancient history in earth pigments and pottery. After working out a colour palette with the pigments collected I started working on a new collection of paintings inspired by the colours and landscape of the area. The pigments collected were local ochre and terracotta rocks, which I then ground into powder with a pestle and mortar back at the studio, before making into an egg tempera mix to paint onto vintage French linen (my favourite fabric of all time). The sage green colour is made from Montmorillonite a mineral that shares its name with the town as it’s found in the earth here. It feels pretty magical creating colour from the land, and very similar to the circular process of natural dyeing.
These paintings are inspired by the Montmorillon landscape, the flowing Gartempe river, the overgrown forests of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, the craggy stone of the buildings, and the wild surrounding countryside. They also hold a physical part of Montmorillon within them, through the colours. From earth to paint, to fabric and someday back to the earth again.
It’s taken a while to process my time here because it was so significant and enlightening. Sometimes it takes a new place, country and people to make you think in different ways and add perspective to your life. The whole experience feels like a dream and now I’m coming back down to reality (hi London) with a renewed sense of purpose and excitement for the future; in work and life. Below are images from my time there, the studio at Casa Julfa, the town of Montmorillon, and the collection of work made.
