According to Plato, ideas are enclosed in our body before our birth and are restored to memory through the

process of anamnesis. They are both primal and canonical, as indicated by the dual etymology of the word “archaic” – arkhè ἀρχή («beginning”) from ancient Greek, and *h₂ergʰ- (“to rule, command”) from Proto-Indo-European. The archaic therefore connects with a collective memory from a distant past – a memory that interacts with affect, the body, and sensory perception. At that point, the common image is resurrected, or recollected. You have never seen it, but it has always been there. This amounts to saying that there is an unconscious aspect to vision, what Aby Warburg would call “surviving images” (Nachleben): certain archetypes survive multiple eras and cultures and continue to fascinate artists. Maybe this is why the forms present in Kethevane Cellard’s work are so familiar to us?

Black ink on white paper, full or empty forms, concave or convex; Kethevane Cellard’s “things” adopt a well-known visual language: the contrast between light and shadow – the very language that gave rise to the first writing. The introduction of a common vocabulary to these forms is all the more powerful because they are mute, locked into hieratic, solitary postures, devoid of action. At the same time, the image resists the senses because it never ceases to deliver meaning; the mystery of archaic forms is that they are at once functional and poetic.

Even relieved of their function, they endure because mutism enables their survival. Indeed, these simple forms and sober tones evolve through an internal dynamism, a slow and silent momentum that drives “the dream of the material”. This dynamism can be found mainly in the hollowed-out parts, cavities and curves – what

Bachelardian psychoanalysis fundamentally associates with the feminine form. Moreover, according to Bachelard, the first images of humans were made with warm materials – what he calls “calorism” – which is relevant given that Kethevane Cellard’s drawings are based on clay models and polished wood. This notion seems particularly germane given that the artist’s technique is itself artisanal; consisting of tiny hatchings that resemble fabric. It is through these tiny markings, like short threads of silk, that the drawing’s “craft” emerges, rebelling against any form of artistic hierarchy.

The artist calls her drawings “figures”, a term that in fine arts refers to the simple representation of the totality of a living thing. More specifically, a “figure” refers to the representation of a human being, and “in figura”, the popular Renaissance-era process, consisted in inserting a self-portrait into a painting. When used by Kethevane Cellard, the word “figure” affords life and naturalness to these clearly anthropomorphic forms. Above all – if we play around with these different definitions – it indicates that the figure is a surface for the projection of the self. Thus, everything that is seen is also what sees; two eyes with long lashes – open on the past, the present and the future – are clearly visible on a pot that features large handles
resembling ears. There is an organic, anthropomorphic nature to these things, which reminds us that the first objects were equally utilitarian and inhabited – as the body is – by a spirit. After all, wasn’t the first bowl formed by a pair of cupped hands?

E. W.-E.