Dimensions: 20x58x5cm
LES SOLEILS ROSES, are five textile works embroidered during six months of chemotherapy for breast cancer.
After I was diagnosed with cancer, I was devastated for three weeks. Then the care, operation and treatments, began and, together, I found my way back to the workshop.
Breasts, mine and those of others, have become my daily obsession. The operations performed and the repairs offered by medicine caught my attention in particular, anatomy of the breast, glands, lymph node networks, scars, length and place, prostheses, artificial or natural, implant method, reconstruction of the nipples by grafts or tattoos. I understood that if breast cancer was one of the least serious, it was also the one that cruelly attacked femininity, identity and intimacy. Hair and chest were lost, essentials. Beyond the health and life that must be preserved absolutely, the image and self-esteem, relationships with others, seduction and sexuality were undermined.
I started embroidery work and I imagined that it could accompany me through the trials I was going to experience. Ideally over time. So I was counting from October 2020 to June 2021, when the radiotherapy treatment and its burns would end. Embroidery offered the possibility of multiple sutures, and potentially kept a link with “beautiful”, that was good, that was it.
I bought old bras in flesh or pink to serve as a base, their material often being thick and sturdy. And I thought about working on the idea of breast prostheses. So I covered the purchased pieces with cotton and wool threads to which I sometimes added seed beads.