Conversation with Miss Terite

Once upon a time, a little girl who loved stories. Twenty years – and wheelbarrows – later, graduated in product design and graphic design, Miss Terite, with her real name Sandrine Barrois, became a visual artist.
She still loves stories so much, but now she creates them, drawing on literature, cinema, topical images. She evokes childhood, innocence, naivete and cruelty sometimes. A dialogue between the real and the fiction takes place, embellished with a touch of poetry. His works take, as the case may be, different forms: from the photo to the drawing, from the sculpture to the installation.
Ms. Terite was born in 1982. She lives and works in Lyon where we have flushed her to ask her some questions.

Hello Mademoiselle, the forest is rather recurrent in your work, why?
The forest is the place of tales. A special atmosphere prevails. Mysterious, agonizing, the forest can also be soothing and become a refuge. The forest, playground of the best and the worst. You get into it and you do not know what you’re going to find there. I like to lose myself. It is a wonderful setting to anchor a story. Each one is then free of the issue of the latter. I questioned, launched an intrigue.

Your universe is rather gloomy; You work colorless?
The engravings, especially those of Gustave Doré, have always interested me. It emerges from it An emotion, a great intensity. I use color sparingly. Only a few keys can appear to highlight certain elements, certain materials. Color as a touch of life to counterbalance sadness, underlying nostalgia.

Is the framework an integral part of your work or is it just a monster system?
The frame by its appearance and / or format is often the starting point of my works. It allows to give the tone, the spirit of the piece. It is then fully integrated into the creative process. For example, for Celle, who wanted to make her heart sing, the frame, by its appearance, allowed me to think of the whole as a bas-relief and to be in total coherence with the story told. Similarly, for the two small round frames of A path through the trees, the idea was to give the impression of looking through a long view, to surprise for a moment in the forest.

Your technique lies between the paper cut and the pencil; What dimension do these techniques bring to your work?
I like to mix both techniques. The pencil alone is not enough for me. I like bringing volume through different plans and / or working the material. The cutting, the folding of the paper but also the work with the fabric, the thread interest me. In addition to bringing more finesse to the set, the cutouts also allow to create sets of shadows and to offer variations according to the light.

You have recently worked on scenography; Is this an orientation that interests you for the future?
Yes quite. It is very interesting and enjoyable to be able to give more depth to a story. The scenography makes it possible to integrate directly the public, to make him participate in what I tell. One can then surprise him, question him. I want to develop this practice more and more indoor as well as outdoor.

Thank you miss !

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