Sandrine Thiebaud Mathieu

Of words, threads and pins

A lover of words, Sandrine Thiébaud Mathieu notes them down as she reads and listens to music. She physically experiences their intensity, invested by their poetry, the image, the emotion, the commitment they give off. She resonates with them.
Writers, philosophers, composers accompany her in her daily life. We find Damasio, a science fiction writer, Bachelard and Maldiney, philosophers and composers like Arthur H to name but a few.

Written down in her notebooks, the words and sentences can remain nestled between these pages for several months.

It is during the development of a sculpture, a pinboard that they come back to her "boomerang" to mark with their imprint what will become the title of her work.

Artists like Rothko, Bonnard, Bernini or Pierrette Bloch, this "plurality of the sublime" comfort her in her art.

Born into a family of hosiery workers, a generation of whom experienced the crisis of the 80s that saw all textile companies close, she was able to observe, experience and was marked by what is called the infraclass (struggle within the same class).

Against this struggle and to find her place, Sandrine Thiébaud-Mathieu took a completely different path, that of the artist, a visual artist as she defines herself.

And for that she had to leave, cut herself off from her origins, join Paris.

After easel painting which represented "Art" for her, pins, a small sewing and hosiery tool, appeared in force over time and in her work as an artist. They are not the main subject of the work; they are its foundation and, on this rediscovered, solid base, the subject of the work can finally allow itself to be fully.

"I am attached to this whole world"

"I feel in my place.
I have no doubt in this work of pins"

Although simple mediums, the pins highlight the structure, they give it shape, consolidate it, maintain it, give it strength and vigor.

In other works, although apparently not very visible, embroideries begin her future work of the pin prick. They construct an abstract geology, underline strata, terrestrial or aerial layers.

Sandrine Thiébaud Mathieu constructs a weaving with her pins, playing with their brilliance or their mattness, their color, golden or silver but can also play with their heads and their inclination or even their coloring as in the case of the use of Murano glass pins. Her family attachment means that she only uses Bohin pins, a “safe bet”; those that her family used.

Sandrine Thiébaud Mathieu’s works become writing.

“It’s my way of interacting with the world”