Article by Oluwatoyin Vincent ADEPOJU, Founder and Director of Compcros : Comparative Cognitive Processes and Systems in Cambridge – 03/12/2014

 

I Am Imperfect, Yet Beautiful

on

Evelyne Huet’s

« Il Faisait Pousser les Roses / He Grew the Roses »

What are these harmonies, like musical rhythms, on my face, first from left below?

Soothing.

A form of the contemplative calm of a Buddha image?

My face, however, does not bear the structural perfection of a Buddha sculpture.

In fact, it is marked by imperfection.

Yet the calm balance remains.

Is this effect created through what seems to be the pointillist method of creating my face, the countless dots that join to make me up?

The art of Nigeria’s Great Ife also created sublime facial forms using a related technique, covering the face with lines that flowed with the undulations of the bone and skin of the face, the central human visual presentation, along with the perfect modelling of this visual centre, giving it a sense of the contemplative, yet palpitating with embodied life.

The defining aesthetic there is a quest for perfection in physiognomic modelling and facial expression.

Mine is not so.

My ears seem asymmetrical in relation to my face, too big in proportion to the overall mass of my forehead down to my jaw.

My temple seems slightly pushed too far inward.

My jaw seems too square to be lifelike, my nose too long and twisted a little too much in the centre.

Yet a musical harmony seems to vibrate through my face…

Compare me with other works by Evelyn Huet, such as her « Dies Irae » or « Day of Wrath », second from left, where a deeply expressive face is in action through the eloquence of facial sculpturing and closed eyes.

The same depth of resonance between facial form and psychological evocation is at play there.

Or is it her « The Holy Family », third to sixth from left, third named « Joseph de Nazareth, the Father, carpenter », fourth, « Jesus de Nazareth, the son, Messiah »,fifth, « Marie de Nazareth,the mother, not working » and sixth, « The Death of Marie de Nazareth »,where mystery becomes a central motif as exquisitely wrought, enigmatic faces yield surfaces unrevealing into which you have to project yourself to find meaning?

There are many more of us, a family unique, each of us a distinctive face, an enquiry into the possibilities of the configuration of bone and skin that is a central feature of the bipeds who believe themselves to dominate the third planet from the sun in what is called the Milky Way solar system.