The reader, portrait of Joële C.
huile sur toile, 100x100cm
Each person has their light. The word ‘person’ is richer and truer than the term ‘individual,’ which is too accountant-like and implies collectivity only in addition. The person is something else; it is constituted from the other. That is why one can make a mask of it. The person is constituted by the gaze of the other. The noble savage is only a legal fiction; in truth, there are always already others, as Rousseau well saw. The portraitist, the ultimate viewer, made the restoration of this gaze his challenge. Joële C. was leaving the market when I captured her. She had filled up on books at the bookseller’s stand. Because she is a great reader. The longest part to find in this portrait was the background. I took it five or six times. Because it is from it that the light comes. And each person has their light.