Françoise Lapierre

A former antique dealer, Marie-Françoise has always been fascinated by objects from the past. This passion made him make a wonderful discovery during the confinement in Corsica. For a year she spent hours walking on the beach of Saint Florent, a small paradise on earth. A kind of well-being accompanied her and one day she came across a fossilized oyster. This very very old oyster was the trigger for a new fascination. She began to photograph them and then pick them up. She felt a real pleasure in discovering new wild oysters. This relationship with nature, the contact with matter transformed by time enchanted him. Each time she took a photograph she discovered faces, characters, objects (a princess shoe for example) as if these objects were animated by a magical power. She could feel the comings and goings of the sea and a flamboyant sensuality. The timeless beauty of these objects restored the taste for life. Every oyster she found took her to another dimension. The antiquarian in her was waking up and she was rediscovering her former attraction for the “memory of time”. Time for it is timeless, but unfortunately we live in an era of the ephemeral, where everything is thrown away, replaced by new, speed, unbridled consumption. Also, she realized that she could photograph them from different angles that revealed new shapes. She therefore began to associate a technical discovery with an artistic inspiration full of creativity.

Based in Mende, she decided to open an art gallery and she shared her photographs of wild oysters with the public. The oysters found themselves in the shop. Many visitors during the summer of 2021 loved her original creations and encouraged her to continue.