I came across Alberto Giacometti  in November 1996 thanks to a late-night television programme. His attitude impressed me.
His obsessive search, his dream of a true work.
The way he confined himself  to the same room with the same models,
looking for the heart, or nucleus, of his ‘material’.

15 hours a day in his atelier; muttering, painting, sculpting, smoking cigarettes.
It felt so familiar: the grumbling at himself and the despair about his own inability.
The search for an utopic ideal; that true, perfect and essential form in which, with a minimum of material  and with a minimum of fuss, one might create a breathtaking splinter filled with beauty and tension.
Not a brush too much; in my case: not a sound too much. No clap-trap.

Like G., I wanted to explore the same models (three chords) in one and the same atelier (combinations taken from string quartet,  piano,  windinstrument).
I wanted to repeat the same portrait several times.
To paint the same woman over and over again.

There are 5 works.
The titles of my works refer to portrait studies  G. made of his wife Annette.

‘Annette dans l’atelier’ is a painting from 1961. (premiere Ensemble Alpha, 2002)
‘Annette [1954] ‘ is a drawing from 1954. (premiere Ives ensemble, 2010)
‘Annette offrant un bouquet de fleurs’ is a drawing from 1956. (premiere Trio  , 2012)
‘avec de faux yeux. je dépasse le Sphinx, sans le voir’ refers to the movie ‘le testament d’Orphée’ (1960) by Cocteau. (premiere Ives ensemble, may 2013)
‘Annette definitivement nue’ refers to the etching ‘nu de profil’ from 1955. (premiere Ives ensemble, may 2013)