Madame O. Fabre Online

1996
Acrylic, sand, fabric and iron on wood
116 x 89 cm
Private Collection

“My pictures arise spontaneously, out of the most insignificant occasions. At a Provençal flea market I found old enamel name plates from around the turn of the century. I bought them and decided to paint pictures to go with them. I started with the sign “Madame O. Fabre” and saw in my imagination a beautiful woman, naked at the window, standing with her back to the viewer, just hanging her laundry to dry on an iron rack in front of the window. I took a large wooden board as a painting base and had the idea of screwing a real iron rack onto it, on which I could actually hang laundry. I stole my wife’s underwear, plasticised it and attached it to the rack. Then my wife also had to pose for “Madame O. Fabre”, with her hair up and naked as God made her. After I had finished painting, came the crowning touch: screwing on the enamel plate. The painting received two art prizes in the south of France in the year it was completed.” (Only later did Mathias Waske learn the true meaning of the sign: “It came from a church pew”.