I first visited Paris in 1987 on a traveling art Scholarship and artist studio residency at Cite Internationale des Arts. I have stayed there several times since, also
in many hotels and apartments. In 2010 my partner Bernard Ollis and I bought an apartment in northern Montmartre, where we now live part of every year. We are lucky to have a long 9 metre balcony, wide enough for narrow tables and chairs. We are on the 6th floor/top (with a tiny lift) and have a stunning view of apartments, roofs and chimneys leading up the hill towards Sacre Coeur.
When we first moved in to the apartment I realised how close we were to those around us and wondered what the etiquette was – do you acknowledge the people you see around you every day? I then discovered unspoken ‘pretend privacy’ of the 6th floor. You act as though you see nothing. An odd situation, where you can see glimpses of the intimate world of people you don’t know. Some of the images in this exhibition are based on our neighbours and people I have actually seen though not literally depicted, and some are entirely imagined. The rooms are mysterious, like fragments of unknown plays, sometimes a set waiting for the action to start. The viewer imagines their own narratives all of which are valid. I loved making up characters, décor and scenarios. Like most of us, I am intrigued by other lives, other alternatives. I was a bit worried all this might seem a bit too voyeuristic or creepy, but then really it is fiction.
– Wendy Sharpe, 2018
