Les liteaux

Liteaux, Torchons, Rideau is a work that blends the spaces of labor, art, and home. It follows the journey of the liteau—a tablecloth used in fine dining that carries the codes of service and repetition, of manners and good taste. Over time, these textiles entered my studio life as rags, absorbing pigments and oils until their striped surfaces became abstract records of work. Through this shift, the liteau moved from the table to a support for creation. Similarly, my day job as a server provides the support for my art practice.

Presented now as a curtain, the work transforms the textile once more: from the rigid manners of fine dining and the flat, autonomous surfaces of painting to a three-dimensional, functional, and domestic object of craft and decoration. Associated with both privacy and display, the curtain functions here as a threshold between spaces—work, studio, and home. The liteau thus becomes an intersection of my necessities: money, creation, and intimacy.

The act of sewing reopens questions of femininity and the ways in which the different spheres of life have been historically gendered. With each stitch, the needle violently punctures layers of paint and the striped patterns of the liteaux. This gesture serves to reclaim the full extent of my gender identity while exposing the moments and places where femininity has been repressed.

The curtain is tied at its center with a ribbon made from a clean liteau. This knot prevents the curtain from fully opening to serve its basic purpose. The grip of money, therefore, conceals painting and inhibits true intimacy.