Holding Space for Stillness

For a while now, My Petite Gallery has been quiet.

This silence was not part of the plan — but it became the story.

In early 2024, I lost my dear friend and artist Pauline to breast cancer. Showing her work and sharing her vision were some of the reasons My Petite Gallery existed in the first place. Her absence has been felt — deeply. At the same time, a new life arrived — my child — reshaping my days and the pace of my life.

The gallery was always a personal project, never just a business or a side project. It grew out of friendship, hope, and a desire to showcase the work of artists from conflict areas — to reshape the narrative. So when I changed, the gallery changed too. When I needed stillness — it became still.

I have been holding space for that stillness.

Stillness as a Creative State

In art, stillness is not the absence of movement — it is a presence.

The painter Agnes Martin spoke of calm as a form of beauty. Her canvases invite us to breathe, to listen, to feel subtlety. She believed that quiet attention is where true perception begins.

The composer John Cage explored silence, not as emptiness, but as a space full of possibility — a place where we learn to hear again.

Performance artist Marina Abramović often speaks of stillness as endurance, attention, and communion — a state of being fully with oneself and with others.

These artists remind us that stillness is not inactivity. It is deep listening.It is the moment before the next form appears. It is the place where meaning gathers.

Re-Inventing Myself, Re-Inventing the Gallery

Becoming a mother has changed how I am, how I think, how I work, how I hold time.

Loss has made art even more meaningful to me — as a way to capture time and the beauty of a moment.

Life has become slower, more interior, more deliberate.

So the gallery is transforming — not ending.

It may become smaller, quieter, more intimate — more rooted in personal connection than in the rhythm of the art market.

A place for tenderness, depth, and real presence.

A place where stillness is part of the process, not something to overcome.

Stillness in the Artists I Represent

Each of the artists I continue to work with holds space for stillness in their own way. Their work has kept whispering to me through this pause, reminding me that art lives even when we are resting.

• Pierre Bessauges — Silhouettes Blue Moon

  A piece that invites the viewer to slow their gaze and notice the space between us.

  

• Claire Pannetier — Bleu Désert

  A quiet exploration of texture, breath, and memory.

  

• Sarah Vozlinsky — Distorsion #2

  A distorted black-and-white landscape that invites the eye to slow and simply be.

  
  

  

• Pauline Maisonneuve — Prendre le Temps (In Memory)

  Her work continues to guide me — a reminder that presence and absence can radiate in the same frame.

  

Stillness is Not an Ending

This pause is not a disappearance. It is a becoming.

I am listening closely — to my life, to my losses, to love, to the artists I continue to encounter, to what wants to grow next.

Thank you for being here through the quiet. Thank you for your patience and your belief in slow transformations.

The gallery will bloom again, in its own time. And when it does, it will be something deeply true.