Inspired by Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528) – The mill of the willows (1496) – Oil on canvas – 14,96 x 21,65 inch

Bree crossed the oceans, the moors, the dangers, to land in this lost corner of America.

Not far away, a village with funny houses and sloping roofs, a river in the middle and trees that should be at least a 100 years old. She has desperately and for always tried to find her parents. When she was a child, a baby perhaps, she was kidnapped by savages, snatched from her family, friends, neighbors. A huge fire then ravaged all the fields around. Nothing has survived.

A long, very long journey followed this painful episode. Hours, days, weeks, months passed by before she was sheltered again under a decent roof. Bree grew up like this, among strangers who have become over time her familiar environment, her family, her friends, her neighbors.

And then one day, as a teenager, while she was bathing at the river, not far away from her home, she met an old woman, a very old woman she had never seen before. The latter approaches her, staring at her with her expressionless gaze, stumbling over the stones in her way. Bree, frightened but intrigued, walks towards her, realizing that she’s completely blind. She helps her by grasping her right arm and makes her sit on the edge of the cool water. That’s when the old woman starts telling her a story, her story.

Since that day, Bree has never stopped trying to escape from this place, now cursed for her, and looking for her parents. The old woman promised her that they were still alive, that she saw them in her dreams, that they had survived the massacre. She was there, as the tribal chief’s wife. She had witnessed the carnage and lost her sight on her way home.

Today, Bree, hidden behind this endless tree trunk, watches the comings and goings of what seems to be a haven of peace. Women, men, children frolic, careless, ignorant. As night falls, she tries an approach to a large building. She opens the heavy door and, in the darkness, moves towards a small light at the end of a long corridor. Voices, shadows. Too late, she can’t go back. Suddenly, in front of her …