Interview with Elsa Tomkowiak, Florian Sumi, Nantes, October 2012

Elsa, it now falls to me to summarize what we have shared during one and a half months, some hundred thousand characters that must be pared down to the barest minimum. I am at a loss for the richly resounding words or heightened visions that might convey what has always appealed to me in your work.
For me, this has always been something beyond the tumult of cultural issues, over and above a garrulous frame of reference and notification. I feel that it delves into life’s inner depths while allowing memories to linger of spaces of another kind. Spaces whose rules and laws overreach those of concrete reality. Because the forms you use do not seem part of the visible world. And though a space’s acoustics always stay with me, yours remain absolutely silent and imperceptible to me. As silent and imperceptible as a virgin territory, upon which one sets foot for the first time. I always come away with a sense of power and force, which must echo something that I am unable to put into words.
So I probed further, and further still, into the strong, silent depths that characterize each of your offerings. And gradually you began to speak. Since I am now still at a loss for words, I have decided to set down what I find most simple and eloquent in your answers. I left my initials as they are more than sufficient evidence of our long discussion.

Florian Sumi:
Elsa Tomkowiak: Not separating life from work is a deliberate move. Taking a step back is therefore quite arduous; sometimes it will take me several months to understand what I have just moved. It seems to me that my expectations of art are rooted in the unknown.
FS:
ET: Indeed. It’s funny that you talk about highlighting the invisible; I already imagined that my work would “set” in daylight (just as paint sets when it dries), and that it would take on another form in darkness! Something that “sets” is therefore a possibility.
FS:
ET: I like your mention of the notion of a non-referential work. Although I have never thought exactly along those lines, I feel that while circles do feature in a lot of my work, I only reveal fragments, truncated images, residual forms and pared-down counter forms.
In these shattered, piecemeal visions the only touchstone is what actually constitutes them ¬— their materials and workmanship — what lies before our eyes. The fragment is like an unfinished idea, merely affording a glimpse of what is to come.

FS:

ET: The image of a lull within a process appeals to me. In fact I think that this is why I want every step that makes up the work to be clearly comprehensible, right down to the famous mark of the “brushstroke”!
The image of a process, of a movement. One of disparate elements, bodies in action, driven as a matter of urgency. A whole, a latent possibility, set into something that is very fragile and precarious.

FS:

ET: Yes, landscape is an important word for me. It denotes the space that nurtures us and is one of the images that matter to me,… a space that has no purpose. Anything can happen there.
Landscape also denotes images of unexpected strata, plate tectonics, of water movement, underground passageways, magma, as well as geographical notions.
Even if I am not looking to represent landscape(s), I work to recapture the sensations that I feel only when in contact with it.

FS:
ET: Yes, I have always found mineral stratification fascinating. For me, a “stratum” (that might take the form of a band) is a compositional medium, like the accumulation of acts, the sedimentation of thought — in short, a metaphor for the creative process.
FS:
ET: Ineptitude? Anomaly? Yes, it is a battle against inevitability! In this respect, the device of colour is a great help to me! I refuse to accept chromatic logic as something inevitable. The colours that I work with are a notion of colour at its most colourful in short. If you ask a child to name his or her favourite colour, the answer will rarely be a shade of grey! When I think of colour, I don’t think of desaturation but of rhythm.
FS:
ET: The circle is the most perfect and most formless form; it has neither direction nor bearing and is highly malleable.
FS:
ET: I do not approach form, colour or even size in isolation but holistically. I think that my impulsive use of materials is a factor… I mean that in the choices I make (in terms of urgency and efficiency), I want something rudimentary and precarious — like furrows, tunnels, trenches, caves, spurs or escarpments.
But perhaps, rather than dissecting the component parts of my work, we ought to look at things holistically. All of these elements that we make into a coherent whole… this may have something to do with chaos?
We live in a world of movement, wild, disorderly and violent, that we seek to control by every possible means. I wonder if, when all is said and done, I am in fact seeking to create spaces where there is a place for chaos. Filtered chaos perhaps!
On the face of it, due to its piecemeal nature, the possibility of what can be planned is unforeseeable. Because I don’t want to follow the laws of physics and colours systematically. This is the ineptitude you were referring to! There is always room for unpredictability in things that are sometimes highly structured. (Incidentally, Bob Dylan said that chaos was a friend of his!)
You told me that I approached art with great virginity; virginity may also be linked to this image of chaos. Chaos as a latent possibility, a force… a pure force? In fact, the places that appeal to me — wastelands, vacant lots, demolitions, quarries — are these transitional spaces not the image of chaos? Is the ephemeral, or rather the temporary (I prefer this word) also the image of chaos?… an unexpected present. It is not about violence or negative disorder… Violence here is a force or power stirring, like one hell of a guitar letting rip!! Mountains that rise up. As you say, this natural, invisible force.
If it is not something known, if it is something piecemeal, invisible, seizing the void, if it is the image of immensity, if it is a force, it may be the energy of chaos! A reality possible at a specific time.
Chaos is always here and now. It is part of the present because it is unpredictable, like us. We are unpredictable creatures. The unforeseen is a shift, a disruption of the line… I very much like the idea of upheaval, of the unexpected; I don’t like things that glide on by, I want to be shaken and stirred.