Edith Dekyndt
Zone à aimer
2023
Brushed drawing on dried leaf, in custom frame
30 x 37 cm, frame size
Unique artwork
Out of stock
about this work
This series of unique artworks is based on historical Feuilles de Poilus, which can be translated as “soldiers’ leaves”. During the First World War, French soldiers (known as the Poilus), dried oak, maple, or chestnut leaves. Using the brush from their kits, originally meant for polishing the metal buttons of their uniforms, they pierced the leaves, creating delicate, lace-like patterns, texts, or images. These fragile objects served both as a way to pass time during the long waits in the trenches and as personal messages of love to sent back home.
By appropriating a language and a craft loaded with historical meaning, Edith Dekyndt creates a connection between history and contemporary artistic practice. At the same time, she reflects on the relationship between humans and their environment, dissolving boundaries between subjectivity and nature, appearance and reality, and the inert and the living.
This series brings together fifteen leaves featuring a circular motif. Each leaf appears to float between anti-reflective glass, housed in a custom-made frame. A similar series of leaves was previously presented in Edith Dekyndt’s exhibition at the Bourse de Commerce, Paris in 2023/2024.
about Edith Dekyndt
Edith Dekyndt has developed a body of work that is both poetic and precise, rooted in the observation of everyday materials and ephemeral phenomena. Dust, light, water, fabric or magnetic fields become central actors in her practice, where subtle transformations are carefully recorded through video, sound, photography, installation and performance. Dekyndt places process above finished form, allowing fragile evolutions to speak for themselves.
Her work often carries a quiet ecological awareness. By magnifying almost invisible shifts—light falling on a surface, moisture crystallising on glass, or a flag stirring in the wind—she reveals the delicate interdependence between humans and their environment. These restrained gestures invite us to slow down and reflect on the fragile balance that sustains the world around us.
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