Geneviève Levivier: Un Arbre à Soi

With her hands immersed in the material, Geneviève Levivier merges the act of gleaning and that of creating in a ritual that unites body and spirit, Nature and Self. Her approach to collecting embraces a broad spectrum: plants, recycled textiles, natural fiber residues, yellowed pages of literary classics from the family library. From these intimate finds, she weaves a new narrative, transcending the material history of the elements gathered, in the image of the shifting, interconnected “Self” described by psychoanalysis.

Through her work with organic and textile materials, particularly in the recurring motif of tree bark, which she photographs and then transposes into abstractions, Levivier rekindles our connection to Nature and its essential materiality. The veins of the Tree, subtly revealed in her weavings and laser engravings, bring us back to our roots deeply anchored in the earth, evoking the all-encompassing, reticular character of our planet – a dimension cruelly absent from our world in crisis.

While Nature remains her primary source of inspiration – whether capturing the peaceful luminosity of a clearing or the intoxicating dazzle of snow – the artist doesn’t hesitate to confront darker realities: the agonizing melting of glaciers, forests charred by devastating fires, the night torn apart by the violence of a humanity losing its soul. For the Self encompasses all these facets, and the textile, sometimes supple and enveloping, sometimes sculpted and tormented, becomes the witness to our shared history and the symbol of a humanity desperately yearning for a better world.