DOUBLE SENS

1st sketch (no date)

2nd sketch (no date)
Emergence of a second viewing orientation, indicated by the octagonal frame (cut-out paper) and the bottles.

4 photomontages from 15 August 2011
1st at 11:01 a.m.

The bottles have been replaced by a mask and a snorkel whose position clearly suggests (though I didn’t see anything when I made this montage) that these are the sexual parts of the character on the left.
from the 1st photomontage, a cash register is associated with the image but is always hidden on the backups.

2nd at 11:17 a.m.

Rotating the image mitigates the sexual nature of the scene.
3rd at 11:29 a.m.

The snorkel is in the hands of the woman, and the mask-snorkel combination evokes the male sexual organs much less.

Version of 13 March 2012  or « the Ghostly Stage »,
due to the elements left in blank, as if they hadn’t yet emerged from the unconscious.

The support becomes circular to easily switch from one orientation to another, allowing a new orientation and so a new meaning, and making a 3rd interpretation, or even more, possible.
The hand holding the knife is inspired by Abraham’s hand in Caravaggio’s painting: « The Sacrifice of Isaac ».
The faceless side of the yellow character is removing the knife from their back or their heart.
I tell myself that the two characters « have good backs ». In French, « avoir bon dos » means « to be a good scapegoat ».
I wonder what the woman is holding; I will have the answer tomorrow.
The second orientation is indicated by an arrow outside, behind the window.
The next day, I see that the double is a woman, so I have my answer: the woman is holding a knife. I still don’t know what the woman with the bun is holding, and I tell myself that I will have the answer tomorrow.
The character with the big hand seems to be wearing a mask.

Version of 6 April 2012

The face of the double is the portrait of Fillide Melandroni, posing for Caravaggio for the painting: « Judith and Holofernes ».
When I finished drawing Judith’s features, a 3rd meaning appeared to me, located right in the middle of the other two.
So I painted the flowing blood and thought the woman with the bun could be called Simone. Then I forgot about this blood and this meaning.
When I removed the green mask of the character with the big hand, I thought I recognized myself in their features.
Then I wanted to paint the face of the woman with the newspaper, and for fear of recognizing her, I put a mask on her.

19 April 2012
Four days after writing the above, I associate everything that had remained blank: the face, the hand, the buttocks, the bun, the newspaper, and I tell myself that I have been spanked a lot.
I spent hours working on the neck (« cou » in French) of the masked woman… until drawing the cloth… Le coup de torchon!

30 June 2015

In this orientation, my mother is higher; she dominates me, and I have red buttocks. The window is in this orientation.

In this orientation, I am higher than my mother; I dominate her, and my buttocks are white. The white monolith and the arrow are in this orientation.

In 2025,
I reused one of the faces from this painting in an oil on wood piece, « Cadeau » (see the Nadine Forthuny page).