INTRODUCTION TO THE BIOGRAPHY AND CV OF MONIQUE JARRY
I undertake this work by providing you with a quote written by hand by Monique from a letter to a friend:
-''... (I do not just want you to understand me, me and my behaviour - I'd like you to ''see'' the movement of my characters (lines, dots, ...) of my story. Why?... It is a matter of testimony, of assistance, we like to have living witnesses of our own existence ... besides God, if I can say!)''
I take the opportunity of this quote to introduce myself to you again. My name is Robert Stanton, I have known Monique for the last twenty-six years of her life in addition I was her husband for twenty-five of those years. It is with humility and great respect that I appropriate the ''title'' of ''witness''.
This work is my testimony of the life of Monique Jarry. I will endeavour to tell you about her life: what she told me about her life before I met her, what I observe and lived with her throughout the years of our life together. This will certainly not be exhaustive, but hopefully this will still be sufficient for you to have the feeling that you have met her and grown to know her a little bit.
I chose to present her biography and her CV as follows, that is to say that the work will be composed of her biography and anecdotes written by me. The things that Monique told me will be treated as free quotes... After, there will be an entry from her curriculum vitae and this, year by year.
The biography begins July 3, 1947, the year of her birth and ends January 21, 2005, at the date of her death.
The CV begins in 1962 and ends in 2005.
Following, there will be her studies and four appendices:
Appendix 1: Studies relevant to pictorial manifestations.
Appendix 2: Research and study specific to techniques.
Appendix 3: Research, study and integration in the areas of psycho-social intervention and psychoanalysis in art.
Appendix 4: Travels for the purposes of specific studies on human and social environments.
And finally, there will be a postscript.
There will be a long biographical entry at the beginning; from 1947 to 1961 followed by the introduction to her C. V. that was put together by her: these texts are attempts or Bios / C. V. that she wrote in various circumstances, addressed to different people.
Beginning in 1962, and that for each year there will be biographical entry, the text of her C. V. then the next year there will be the Bio entry, followed by her C. V. and so on, year after year.
When I said earlier in this introduction that I chose to treat this work as a whole ...here is why: (This foreword, written by me, comes from the introduction to her curriculum vitae.)
FOREWORD
Curriculum Vitae'': life career.
Monique Jarry, is a committed painter and is very active in the socio-cultural world. Her intimacy, her private life, her original creative work and her noted interventions in the artistic and social environment can not, in his case, be considered and understood case by case. She is part of a select group of artists who, throughout their lives, have searched and lived exposing their guts and courage in front of everyone.
This singular behaviour of a lifetime does not seem to result from a choice: We are all born ‘’human being'' and become, over time and our evolution, citizens choosing a career and a profession.
One is born an artist, like we are born human beings, it is not a question of choice but a ''state'' that through what is lived and experiences, make of some of the artists, those that will stop at nothing, and accept to live within this constraint or, rather, they refuse and silently suffer all their life.
The ‘’committed’’ artist also suffers, but, as Monique has consistently done during her life, seeking at all costs to transform her sufferings, her joys, her experiments into messages, into critics, testimonies, into commitments, knowledge, and finally, above all, into artistic works.''
So, you understand that her biography and her CV are indivisible. Monique was a whole person and did not live in ''compartments''.
She is a woman that lived in the latter half of the twentieth century and four years in this one, and was most certainly ‘’treated’’ in those years as most women of her time. I am referring to the way women were treated ‘’sociologically'' and personally and despite some ‘‘changes’’ unfortunately, still are. But she did not limit herself to ''the cause of women,'' she embraced the cause of the human mammal as a whole.''
What makes Monique special in this sense is that she really ''testified'' on behalf of herself, of her time, of her society, its condition, the condition of human beings through her paintings, writings and the whole of her actions. She SAID it, WRITTEN it, PAINTED it, CRIED it and SANG it to all who might find it to be useful. She cried and laughed with talent and ART, with unreserved passion and above all, with deep sincerity and love.
Robert Stanton.
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