Why the Orchids ?

From rustic varieties that strew our countryside -a hundred in France- to the most luxuriant varieties of oriental countries, orchids constitute, in 25.000 species disseminated through almost all regions of the globe, the most numerous family of the vegetable reign.

That they appoint "Vanillas", "Tail of Fow", "Golden Rain", "Orchids-Swan", or "Cradle of Venus", their beauty and their heady perfumes, fascinate men and insects.

Their flowers, in an infinite range of colours full of brightness, evoke according to species, Indian silk shimmer, the wealth of the mottled brocards or the virginal purity of a nun's veil.

Symbol of virtue, simplicity and courage, the orchids is also a symbol of charm, elegance, feminine grace in what it has most accomplished, the love, the beauty, the perfection and the spirituality.

In homage to the ORCHIDEA -called #1+ in USA- sewing and embroidering machine, last-born of the range Husqvarna, "Orchids in all their shapes and colors", has been the theme of inspiration for french artists that each of them, to their manner, have interpreted.
Sewn, embroidered, painted, dyed, shredded, cut up, quilted... the textile here has undergone a full range of manipulations and outrages.

Between realism and abstraction, conformism and audacity, humour and poetry, works of this exhibition celebrate the revival of the textile art. They reaffirm the importance of the sewing machine as tool of creation, indispensable to all artists of the textile and even more to these that, as Picasso pleased to repeat : "My thought goes more rapidly than my hands."

Jacqueline GOVIN
Texte du catalogue de l'exposition