For this presentation, I chose to pin the pieces directly to the wall, as though they still are at the stage of conception. The drawings and engravings are mounted in the manner conceived in the studio: open, lengthening along the wall, responding to each other, fragile but giving the eye their fullest materiality.

In the Solfeggio Notebooks I concentrated on the stroke as if it was a question of working the timbre of a voice, I imagined the body who produces the stroke like a musical instrument, constantly adjusting in order to expand its resonating capacity. By creating similarities between the body and the instrument, the theme of musical notation traced itself, the black forms, uniformly applied, revealed themselves as punctuation signs, the washes made me think of breathed sounds, the white space of silence...

With the Arpeggios drawings, I wanted to pare down, engage a more intimate register. By making small, tight motifs I created small cadences, which I then juxtaposed with a page where the stroke is thin: these are attempts at rhythms. The printing of a motif notebook was inspired by the black notebooks, in which instructions and commentaries of my music professor are found.

I am not a musician; I was extremely fascinated with contemplating the signs contained in musical scores. The breath, the half-breath, the quarter-breath...

Elmyna Bouchard

The artist thanks the Conseil des Arts et des Lettres du Québec (Quebec Art Council). Elmyna Bouchard thanks The Alain Piroir Studio for their invaluable support.