Sisyphe, les joies du couple

• Year of publication
• 2016

It’s as if Aurélie William Levaux (or AWL for the lazy ones) decided to revisit the catch-all term of graphic novel; you can surely say that AWL’s work is “graphic”, her so particular technique, a mixture of embroidery and painting on fabric, is always wonderful. But in Sisyphe, les joies du couple, AWL also focused on the word, in a meticulous and accurate text that describes a certain part of what life as a couple can be – this is where we find the “novel” aspect of the project. The relationship between the text and the image goes beyond the pure framework of illustration, and the mix between juxtaposition and confrontation, becomes a creator of meaning. As for Sisyphus, it seems to be how AWL conceives life as a couple; a cycle that repeats itself, according to an invariable matrix made of fights, break-ups and reconciliations. She also shows the complexity of feelings that are expressed in this strange yet common formula that is the couple, a formula made of abnegation and renunciation, but also of impulse and spontaneity, of anger and envy, of desire and contempt, of sweetness and violence, of calculation and abandonment – as if love was there to wake up every feeling inside of us, without any coherence, from one extreme to another. There is almost something definitive in this evocation of a couple at war, which allows AWL to sign her strongest and most beautiful book to date.

152 pages

Full color

18.00 x 27.00 cm