Galerie Langlet, Paris
Mars 2007
Sara Badr Schmidt by Pascal Bruckner
There are individuals who spend their lives waiting : doormen, sentries, watchmen, caretakers, priests or pastors, some for closing time, others for everlasting life, each appointed to this fundamental function for different reasons. Through their presence they testify to what does not yet exist but which one day will occur, as important for the salvation of mankind as what already exists. Sara Badr Schmidt’s canvases, particularly the most recent ones, belong in this category : in her work we always find a chair, sofa or armchair, empty and available, inviting us to settle down, to sit before making room for others. The chair awaits the passer-by in the same way as the painting awaits the visitor who through it will get back in touch with his inner self. It invites repose, a welcoming absence, a stage on a journey that never finishes.
This waiting is not painful or impatient, it is calm. Sara Badr Schmidt has a summarizing approach to painting : she goes back in time, encountering both the abstract and the figurative, experimenting with collage, sprinkling her works with poems by Prévert and ironic or poetic phrases. This revisiting of styles is not only playful, it is also educational : Sara Badr Schmidt “summarizes” so as to be able to create in her turn and find her own path. She shows a desire to include everything as art, mixing shapes, colours, remarks and materials, even the most trivial and unexpected of these, such as oilcloth : writing and drawing exchange their prerogatives, contradicting and reinforcing each other. more