In March of 2024 I attended a conference about three French women sculptors, Louise Bourgeois, Niki Saint Phalle, and Annette Messager at the Museum of Contemporary Art Panacée in Montpellier. Two were familiar but Annette Messager was not other than that she was the partner of Christian Boltanski. I was struck by her 3D suspended sculptures made up of numerous small photographs and her drawings using the repetition of a single word.

To build her portrait I transformed the photos into a collage of 53 small sculptures in cast bronze, cast aluminum, kiln cast glass, and carved wood (sipo and chestnut) to make up her face and used six of her favorite words: rencontre, attente, desir, chance, ruse, and emotion to make her hair.

Annette Messager born in the same year as me, 1943, lives and works in the Paris region.