Itinerary "In Search of Artists" on the territory of Pré-Bocage Intercom. The Halle de Caumont-l'Eventé, built in 1532, hosts the creations of Mélanie THIBOULT "For several years, my research has been organized around the body, body of the painting, body of the painter, female body. I like the very large formats, the relationship to the body during the act of creation. Putting your body in play, leaving a trace. Body-Matter-Skin-Flesh-Territory-Landscape-Figure-Fragment «My body is not only perceived among the perceived, it is measured by all» Merleau-Ponty. Struggle of the bodies emerging from this matter, my work expresses the need for me to physically confront the canvas, to feel it. Between the need to be in a certain truth of drawing, a correctness of the line and the need to free oneself from it, how to combine the substance and the form? The technical means are at the service of the meaning and their mastery is for me indispensable to free oneself from it. I wanted to «evacuate» the drawing and today I find myself torn again because or thanks to this series of portraits on paper started during the lockdowns. Working around the body for 25 years, the faces have appeared with this series homage to an immense 17th century Italian painter Artemisia Gentileschi. Words, graphic gestures are important. From the portraits of Artemisia to the recent news about Iran and to this slogan «woman-life-freedom», from bodies to portraits, from matter, from the spontaneous, direct, sometimes violent gesture, to the line, to the hatching, my work goes back and forth between drawing and matter, goes through the body, talks about memory, scars, flesh, erasure, disappearance, the place of woman, the female body, veil, “veil of paint”. The bonds are woven, the threads unravel gently. From Artemisia with her figures of fearless warrior women to Iranian women, I started a new series of banners entitled «mouths sewn on». It is these very large formats that are presented in this place. The matter, the gesture and the presence of the body, the body of the painter reappear. Matter, superimpositions, and gesture compete for place in line.