Katy Martin, Nicolas Jacquette and Jérôme Liniger met for the first time, in 2011, on the occasion of an art symposium at Yale University. A few days later, they met again in Katy Martin’s studio in Manhattan, sharing thoughts about painting, photography, and each artist’s creative universe. They decided, then and there, to do a project together, and began imagining ways to cooperate between Paris and New York!

 

 

 

One year later, Nicolas and Jérôme welcomed Katy in Paris for ten days. The idea was to stage a performance, for camera, that would build on the active, gestural approach to painting that Martin and Liniger shared. Nicolas proposed, in the manner of a reporter, to document the meeting with a series of photographs.

 

Adding to this synergy, a fourth collaborator – Christophe Averlan – decided to capture the performance as a film. He envisioned a work that would explore and recreate the intimacy of the happening as a more permanent art work.

 

After Martin arrived in Paris, they all worked together to write a scenario – which they thought of, at the time, as a painting in three acts. Then they set up the studio space, building it as you would for a live performance show.

 

In Paris, December 2012, the first performance for two cameras took place: four actors – all visual artists – in their respective mediums, creating a poetic and plastic work. The result was a play between abstraction and figuration, between bodies and pigments, theater and visual art.

 

Liniger painted on plastic sheeting as Martin painted her own body, then his. The two painters each kept their own style and approach, yet the painting that resulted was somehow fully joined.

 

The photographer’s artistic ballet also played a full and integral part in the process, participating completely in the energy and dialogue of the painting. Jacquette’s series of still photographs became a sort of painting creation that reframed the rough material of pigments, the painter’s interactions and the traces of the brush.

 

In addition, Averlan’s video camera came alive, catching the scene as a documentary, revisiting drips, and blending skin textures and paint.

 

The four mediums really met in the moving image camera’s eye: painting, performance, photo and film. The footage captured the vitality of the painting process, punctuated by the shutter sounds of the still camera evoking heartbeats!

 

With that performance, the first step was concluded and “The Meeting Point” as an ongoing project was born.

 

Then, in January 2015, Averlan began a new phase, reworking the video images to give them a new dimension. His piece now exists as a six-minute work that conveys the full spirit of the collaboration. It is having its premiere at Anthology Film Archives in New York City, in May 2015, as part of a show about Martin’s work. This marks the culmination of Phase I of our project.

 

We plan future meetings – perhaps including more artists – with new images, new spaces and an expanding dialogue across disciplines. The idea, as we continue to work together, is to reach beyond our individual forms to create a rich language and diverse meeting points.