Walking through the hundreds of rooms at Château of Versailles, I couldn’t help but notice, the old, stuffy smell and the sound of squeaky, footsteps upon the ancient floors. So, I made a sound video and took close up shots of the wallpapers and other surfaces.
I mainly had a fascination with the “over the top” décor, decorative surfaces and patterns.
Below the surfaces of this show of power and extravagance, was a history of passion, debauchery, sex, treachery, brutality, corruption, torture and death. I imagined the exotic and beautiful people, the power of the Kings, the abuse of women, Marie Antoinette and the peasants who starved in villages.
I also was taken back to my childhood, when, I enjoyed being in my own little world creating, away from the real world. My mum used to make gorgeous clothes with beautiful fabrics and trimmings and I was given the leftover’s. I taught myself to make collage’s, wall hangings, to decorate my room from a very young age.
When I was older, I decorated my bedroom with scarves, scraps of fabric and tacked up old bedspreads, made from cotton and woven fringes. The bedspreads became a wallpaper backdrop for my bed that I made into a couch.
I made heaps of cushions and would sit for hours reading, Go Set and TV Week, magazines. The pop star posters were stuck onto the other 3 walls and ceiling.
I have a pile of vintage French fabrics and papers and have been playing around with a few ideas and may look into having an arts residency, nearby in the future.
