French photographer Estelle Hanania sets the tone for her publishing house Myriorama's program, inaugurated with the singular work discovered in the shopping cart of Mrs. N., an artist on the margins who, at 78, sells her drawings on the sidewalks of Paris's southern suburbs on market days.
"When we visit Hélène, the radio is often on. She tells us about the images that live inside her, and the life that's passed. She speaks of the world she lives in. Hélène has many friends, but many are gone. She tells us about the cafés in the Paris suburbs where she used to go at night to sell her drawings, and the classes she used to audit at the École des Beaux-Arts. She tells us about her husband, who could sit watching films until dawn; about strawberry jam, risen pizza dough, oregano, the big white beans her mother served, spicy salt cod, polenta with civet, and what it was like to grow up in a town that changed its name more than once. She tells us about the boats on the shores of Algeria and the people weeping in them, the sound of grenades at night, the girls with banana chignons and flat shoes she'd see smoking in their aunt's garden—right below her balcony."
Extract from "The Green Gaze" by Laure Fernandez
Hélène N. was born in 1947 in Skikda (formerly Philippeville), Algeria, to Sicilian and French parents. She moved to France at the age of fifteen, when her family settled in Palaiseau, a suburb southwest of Paris. Her early years were shaped by personal hardship, but also by a resilient life force and a passionate drive toward the arts. Despite limited means, she roamed museums and cinemas, and immersed herself in the world of music. In her late sixties, she began drawing women's faces—eventually creating an extraordinary number of portraits.What remains of this body of work—produced over the course of a decade—is a collection of around one hundred pieces, ranging from 24 × 32 cm sheets to small, irregularly cut fragments. Many were lost, discarded, or sold at markets and in cafés.
