SAIS-TU, TUE S OÙ..? (FROM THE SERIES “Ô, LE MONDE SANS OISEAUX”)

What if God was an artist… and forgot to paint the birds?

Conceptual statement for the work “Sais-tu, tue s où..?”

(From the series “Ô, le monde sans oiseaux”)

This painting from the series A World Without Birds was born from this dizzying question — an exploration of a world missing one vital element. Inspired by the biblical story of creation in seven days, I spent 30 months filling the canvas with elusive shapes, colors, movements, and almost-vanished images of souls — those that still fly or only remember how to.

Birds are not merely feathered creatures; they are metaphors for the soul’s striving toward transcendence, faith, and creation. Without them, the world would be quieter, heavier, deprived of light and inspiration. What would become of our souls without them? Would they remain earthbound?

This work invites reflection on the absence of winged beings — symbols of freedom, inspiration, and spiritual flight. It is a dialogue between Creator and creation, a meditation on faith, dreams, loss, and the invisible bonds that both bind and transform us.

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7-belt frame handcrafted by the artist, like 7-days world handmade by the creator

Seven leather belts, woven by hand — not merely a frame,

but the living flesh of time.

A trace of breath.

A memory of what holds the world together.

Like a belt of chastity stretched across the canvas,

these straps become a vow — a protection, a fortress, and a potential prison.

They preserve. They protect. They bind.

They are both shield and chain.

Their arc, almost a hyperbola, echoes the sign of infinity —

a fragile space between Presence and Absence.

A place where something more may lie hidden: a Secret.

Or perhaps… the Key itself.

What do we hold within these bounds?

Are we being held — or are we clinging to them, afraid to let go?

Each curve of the leather whispers an Ino-choice:

to rise into freedom

or remain bound by invisible ties,

frozen in silence.

This frame is not a boundary,

but a meeting line:

between beginning and end,

Creator and creation,

viewer and image.

What invisible limits shape us?

And who holds the key — we, or the Creator?

The canvas, enclosed in this living frame, becomes an eye gazing back

holding both the key to flight and the key to captivity.

Are we ready to take the key and open the lock?

To unlock the cage for the invisible, absent bird — within ourselves, or in another?

To rise — or to remain in the cage, resigned to our chains?

Or maybe,

you were the bird whose wings were overlooked.

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Artistic concept

The Ô, le monde sans oiseaux series explores the fragile connection between breath and soul, flight and faith, light and absence.

Birds are invisible energies — without them, creation cannot soar.

Without flight, there is no impulse.

Without impulse, no art.

It is from absence that creation begins.

From emptiness — from the freedom of Inochoice — emerges the freedom to create.

This work is a tribute to the invisible bird living within us all.

To the faith in another’s dream.

To the silent bond between wings and soul.

My paintings sing of flight,

and silence whispers:

“None of this would have existed… if the world had no birds.”

It is in the space between two realms – the visible and the absent – that my art breathes.

**The soul in this painting is not alone.

It drifts above the bustling streets of Clermont-Ferrand,

a city alive with sounds, whispers, and memories.

Behind it, the majestic Puy de Dôme rises silently — a guardian mountain, timeless and watching,

like a distant, observing God holding the world in quiet embrace.

To the side, the soaring spires of Notre-Dame-de-l’Assomption

pierce the sky, reaching toward the stars — as if they hold a forgotten prayer suspended between earth and heaven.

Here, the soul hovers, caught between the noise of life

and the silence of faith,

between the earthly and the divine,

between soaring freedom and quiet captivity.**

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Iconography beyond the seen: Inoreality, Ino-iconography, Inodogmas

I call this a new form of icôn — Ino-icônography.

Here, ancient symbols and spiritual archetypes are incarnated through a language of silence, light, and absence.

 

ô le monde sans oiseaux is not just a series.

It is visual theology.

An iconography of the impossible.

 

In this inoreality, other laws prevail —

not physical, but soul-bound:

light as memory, image as trace, presence as shadow.

My paintings become inodogmas —

signs of what never was,

yet could have been the most essential.

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Absontia — the method of image-birthing

What remains unspoken speaks louder than any word.

What is left undone shows more than any deed.

The Absontia method is a visual philosophy rooted in being through absence.

It is not a style, but a state.

A contemplative practice of the impossible.

The art of silence.

The language of the unspoken.

Gratitude for what never came to pass.

Absontia explores emptiness as a source.

Here, absence is not void — but potential.

Through absence, meanings arise that illuminate presence.
 

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Questions of Creation

What happens to the soul in a world where birds never flew?

What kind of art is born from such silence?

What makes us alive — breath, images… or the possibility of flight?

This work is not an illustration.

It is a visual prayer for what never was,

but had it been — could have changed everything.
 

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About the title

Sais-tu, tue s où..? — a whisper and a cry at once.

Do you know where you’re going?

Do you know whom you wounded?

Whom you killed — a bird? A dream? Another?

Have you kept your wings —

or clipped someone else’s without noticing?

Welcome to my world without birds.


 

Text & Artwork: Polina Teyrasse

ph: maestro Leonard Cohade

Painting Method: Absontia ©

Clermont-Ferrand, 2025