About Saar Sonépouse

I work with images and tangible traces from my family history, layer upon layer. Mixed media becomes an echo of what resists being captured. My images undergo a process: I carry them with me, let them absorb traces of my physical interaction with interim creations. They get wet, tear, warp, become “damaged” – and grow into vessels of experience.

My work is about undergoing, not documenting. About memories that refuse to remain still, but shift, distort, and repeat. What I make, shapes me. In the cracks, the discolorations, and the repetitions, it becomes visible how history inhabits my images through my “I.” I give form to what was never allowed to be spoken, in the frayed edges of who I am.

May Saar be?

Is my inquiry into what I’ve inherited but was never allowed to name – and what I now try to pry loose.

I grew up surrounded by stories, but mostly by silence. My grandmother spoke – always the same images, the same pain – her voice kept the past alive.

Nothing was said about my great-grandmother. But her absence filled the room. She carried what was too heavy. My mother was with her when she chose to leave life behind.

After the war, after her death, the Jewish part of us was hidden. No language. No rituals. Invisibility as protection, because showing your Jewish identity felt dangerous.

And again and again, the same question returns, soft but sharp, in image:

May Saar be?