Artistic approach

Iris’s work first took the form of a text written in 2024, La femme qui dort (The Sleeping Woman), based on her experience as a fitting model in a haute couture fashion house. In it, she depicts a character who splits in two, escaping from a body subjected to scrutiny, distorted by tight clothing, passed from hand to hand in the fitting room. This woman escapes from her body to a fantasized elsewhere, made up of scenes from paintings she remembers, populated by the solitary and inscrutable figures of sleeping women. She sees in these figures a troubled reflection, finding herself confronted with other women who are also escaping, this time through sleep, whose secret elsewhere behind closed eyelids, impervious to the gaze, she can only imagine. She projects stories, actions, and memories into these paintings, which merge to form hybrid narratives.
Iris experiments with skills at the intersection of several mediums, which intertwine within the process itself. The lines blur between painting, printing, and weaving. She sets up experimental processes around these practices. It is slow, meticulous work that involves several machines and different skills.

Artist’s biography

Iris Delcourt was born in 2002 in Paris, where she lives and works. She graduated from the Textile and Material Design department of the École des Arts Décoratifs in Paris in 2025.

Feedback

My residency at the Maison Flottante was a research residency; there, I found the time and space to reflect and create as a continuation of my thesis project, but with new tools and new questions. How do I create after school? Materials and tools need to be redefined; constraints, timelines, and desires change. Preparing my application had already helped me put my work into words, articulate my questions, and realize that I did indeed have a field of research and experimentation.

The duration of my residency and the solitude prompted these reflections, but I want to emphasize that the place plunged me into a state of introspection and intense contemplation; enclosed, symmetrical, with its vaulted, wooden, enveloping structure resting on the water—a place where all the events and sounds of the environment and nature are amplified. The movement of the water, the sound of rain on the metal roof, and the creaking of the ropes and the barge all amplify the sense of vulnerability I felt while living on the water.

With text, as with textiles, I work from memories—memories that are evoked and rekindled by places, gestures, and words. Little by little, many memories have filled the space of the Maison Flottante—memories that did not always have a particular connection to the place but found a way to emerge here. They gradually shift, blend into one another, and form the backdrops for fictional stories. Reality and dreams are no longer distinguishable from one another. The memory of the Floating House and the time I spent there has now itself become a source of inspiration—an imaginary place where I can weave stories—and I will continue to keep it alive in this way. This period—which felt both very short and very long—allowed me to confirm my desire to make weaving and printing the focus of my work, to continue my exploration of text and how it can coexist with textiles, and to recognize the need to find a space where I can bring all of this to life!

Open doors

Open Doors : Saturday, June 20, from 11:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

On the program:
11:00 AM – Perspectives: Artists in Residence & Craftsmanship

A discussion and exchange about the residency experience, its impact on the creative process, and the connections between contemporary creation, craftsmanship, and the local area, at the Maire de Poses (88 Rue des Masures, 27740 Poses)

With:

• Iris Delcourt, textile designer, in residence in June 2026
• Agathe Bejerano-Calderon, luthier, former resident of the Maison Flottante, now based at the Ateliers Saint-Cyr in Vaudreuil

12:00 PM – Tour of the artist residency studio

Discover the Maison Flottante in Poses, a space for creation, research, and hosting artists in residence, supported by cneai =.

Free admission with registration – maximum 30 people
Register by email: public@cneai.com

Partners

The residency is supported and assisted by:
the City of Poses,
the Seine-Eure Urban Community
and the Department of Eure.