L'Ecume Des Jours

Boris Vian

For Marta Ibarrondo, Boris Vian’s L’Écume des jours is the literary embodiment of romantic idealism, an ethereal meditation on love’s beauty and fragility. So deep was her reverence for the novel that she learned French to encounter it in its original language, convinced that such a tender, otherworldly story could only be fully understood in its most lyrical form.

Ibarrondo inscribes excerpts from the text onto handmade Koso Japanese paper, its blue surface evoking an infinite sky. Rendered in matte white acrylic, the words hover like clouds—half text, half atmosphere. Blotches of white paint dissolve the boundaries between word and air, creating an effect of suspension and serenity. Presented as diptychs, the phrases form a visual dialogue between lovers, echoing the novel’s devotion to intimacy, whimsy, and the fleeting purity of connection. The result is a love letter rendered in air and light, where language becomes a weightless architecture of feeling.