Tout Flux
Manuel Pomar

Don't think you knew you were in this song *

Facing Océane Moussé's drawings, I'm always overcome by the same feeling:soundtrack fills my head and two songs emerge. The words are here, clear and distinc as in « Five Years » when Bowie is overwhelmed by sounds, phones bellowing fro everywhere, kids crying, his head bustling with his favorite melodies, his brain on the verge of explosion. He's paralyzed by the empathy he feels for those he meets. This is the murmur of a world in distress after the news of the ultimate catastrophe. Accordin to Diabologum, the upheaval is caused by an anecdotic climatic disturbance :”When  opened my eyes the world had changed, in the middle of August I think it snowed...”. Her too, day-to-day life is being shaken-up in what is mostly insignificant. The surrounding abruptly slide from normality to the most unsettling strangeness.
A somewhat noisy introduction to describe drawings that offer themselves to be see with such gentleness. We can let our eyes pleasurably wander on the page. There is n coercion in this one-to- one encounter. The eyes just read the page following their ow curves. In Océane's work, the sheet of paper and the lines inhabiting it build the rhyth of vision. Most of the time, two spaces are delineated: a blank area, white and luminous the sky. Below, a multitude of lively blades of grass slowly spread, as a vegetal crowd willing to devour the paper. A strange and unknown universe, deserted most of the time And when peopled, it is livened up by an unexpected and quiet parade. “The Tourists” fil the space with their organized and servile processions. They slit the undulating prairie leaving no trail behind, as if this methodic horde couldn't impose a long term change o the scenery: they are ghostly absent columns delicately sparing the earth. We are plunge in a discreet unreality. Men come out of earth and return to it with an unsettling normality sometimes even using escalators! Looking closer, these travelers sometimes carry luggage, which raises a sense of bitter uncertainty as they migrate through the prairie with resignation. Paid holidays don't seem to be the only thing motivating their migration If an escape, it is done calmly. If an exodus, it is incredibly peaceful. Each traveler ha his own posture; the attitudes vary: like the grass each human has his own identity ! The majority obediently follows the course of the river, few others throw curious glimpses, thei eyes actively staring at elements outside the frame. They observe and maybe forese other realities. Other realities maybe to be found in other drawings, the ones in which strange people driving mowers evolve ! Erasers with no “erase” button; mechanica Attila(s) leaving a white silent inhabited trail in their wake ! The impact of these lonesom characters on the drawing seems multiplied compared to the limited hives swaying fro grassy surfaces to invisible abysses. The reapers bring death while the masses naturall follow the herd, unguided, without Messiah nor luminous silhouette leading the way to a umpteenth Way of the Cross. The borders and the depths of the deserted prairie-worl show no freedom of action. The absent paths are drawn, the greenhouses and gazebos sometimes summoned, unfit to defuse the inevitable.

The lines are light and precise. The intensity arises from their countlessness and density An unidentifiable unease emerges from the infinite lacerated sea and the radiating light A drawing of lights, shades and mysteries with lines in minor key. Both a syncopated an soothed frenzy from which a unique and imperceptibly disturbing atmosphere wells up.

Océane Moussé offers us a universe where magic takes place, suspended in time motionless in space. The fragile balance and the human beings have become dream hanging from the cadence of her hand. Lives unfold. The work of art abandons us, poor interpreters of a world where the tragedy could easily be deactivated by a diurnal readin of it. A poetic doubt floats in these drawings, leaving us free to interpret according to our moods.

Manuel Pomar.

* extract from “Five Years”, David Bowie in "The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the
Spiders from Mars", 1972, RCA Recor