Michel DAVE

“Writing is also a form of drawing.” When someone quipped that writing is also drawing, Michel Dave embarks on an abundant production of written drawings, of drawn writings. Graphical lists made by signs whose interest goes beyond their meaning, even if that is ever so important. It is not a string of words dumped there by chance. And if Michel Dave chooses them gingerly in a dictionary, he does not limit himself to recopying slavishly in alphabetical order. We go from one surprise to another when we cast our gaze on them, jumping from association of sounds to association of meaning, on an itinerary of our eye sustained by more or less rippled dotted lines. Michel Dave started to go to the workshop of La Pommeraie in 1990 and it was after a year of graphical trial and error that he found his way in words. His gesture, which became more fragile as his health declined, was silenced in 2015 following a period of intense production.