Arielle Sibony
What I cannot say
I write. And what I cannot write I paint.
Arielle Sibony is a French-Israeli writer and artist.
She was born in Paris and emigrated to Israel in 2015.
Lost between several languages and identities, realizing that meaningful words are not enough to express herself, she decided to explore a new medium of expression more profound: Art. Jumping from her pen to her paintbrush, from one country to another, one language to another she is writing and un-writing her vision through different means of expression.
On dropping the social mask, the joy of solitude—and never listening to opinions
What would you recommend to watch, read and listen to?
The writers who changed my life are without doubt Zola—especially L’Oeuvre, which talks about him and the French Impressionist artists, and Bashevis Singer, for how insightful he is when he describes his characters and their psychology. I wish to write like him one day.
To watch, I would say all the movies of Almodóvar for their depth and artistic tone. Woody Allen, for me, will always be a reference as a witty, funny and very shrewd filmmaker who depicts not only people but also situations in a very accurate way. Also Ingmar Bergman. I like to see how artists see people and how they reshape them in their own way of expression.
I’d definitely recommend listening to French singers Barbara, [Georges] Brassens, Jacques Brel (although he was actually from Belgium). I love Joe Dassin and Boby Lapointe for their lyrics and the beauty of the words they chose.
Do you have a muse or an idol? Who inspires you?
I love Marguerite Duras and Françoise Sagan, both French writers and powerful and inspiring women who affected my way of writing and how I see the writing process. People say I write like a mix of them, and I think that’s because they were both independent women and the way they write is very free. Both are bourgeois, and show that you don’t have to be the cliché of the starving artist to write or paint.
For my paintings, I would say all the Abstract Expressionist artists: Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline and Mark Rothko… But also Surrealist artists like André Breton, David Gascoyne, Pablo Picasso, Marcel Duchamp and Luis Buñuel.