" Dr Marteen - Namor " - Série COMMOTIONS N•1 (2013) Painting by Grégory Dreyfus

"Dr Marteen - Namor" - 1- Here, the character of Marteen imagined himself, without really understanding his resemblance to my ventriloquist puppet, in tailcoat and high form from the late 70s and early 80s that I brought back from New York being a child. He was in my Parisian room at a good height, staring at me from the diagonal of the room, at my bed, right corner. He was holding my brown Borsalino near him, on the display cabinet where I stored my entire collection of Japanese and American robots, mannequins ... and many other science fiction toys and electronic game devices. This one, this showcase under which I was observed, was therefore to the left in the corner, of the large window. In the middle, in front of the window always ajar and veiled with transparency, behind the white opaque curtains never completely closed, a current of air gave life to a movement of subtle and invisible life, like a ghost delivered in its gauze which came to rub against my minimalist and white office. The office had no right angles just roundings of the cylindrical metal frame of good diameter, painted in green ... My room was all in white and in the evening in the illuminated half-light, under the light of the office which gave an atmosphere crazy, enthroned my typewriter and my drawing board. My 'felt' that I definitely never stopped wearing without knowing that I was showing it off at the time - I was always dressed in style, I loved that - was a memory of my brother-in-law, a prosecutor but who had worn out paper like a reporter in the Manhattan rain, in his crumpled beige raincoat and our friend's hat. He was wearing suspenders. ... Besides, Marteen had been one of his gifts for me as well, but Christmas that year. The more Marteen appeared, the more I conjugated him with "Namor the Submariner," superhero from the Marvel comics whom I likened to great power, a lot of anger and a formidable pride. Finally an in-between in that face was pronounced. Until the appearance of the flow of energy flowing so freely between them. _Funny for a puppet whose character is only the animated projection of his master, invisible, and of which he denies being the extension and of which he denies being the author. _Funny for an iconoclastic prince whose gentleness would make the warlord lie that he really is and who lives his life as a disillusioned being ... outside the world, waiting for a few found civilians outside, to finally appear flamboyant. Through these multiple, transgressive personalities who ultimately express everything Marteen is in a transparent mask: civil, urban, with a history of the ages and a strong vision, a light in the soul. And a puppet by fact, manipulated, by its fate, by its character, trying to regain a share of freedom to the point of splitting the atom, becoming a prince, a valiant. Or the arm that manipulates in the shadows or beside it for fear of being true, of fear of offering itself to the world and of jumping into the void. Which of the three is not free? The puppet, the arm, the superhero. Maybe no one. "Namor" is a tough enough being, misanthropic enough for a super hero. His resemblance minus the pointed ears, gave him a more peaceful, more tender spirit. 2- Dr Marteen, once enlightened by these two entities ... breathed into the resilient figure of this man, with a surprising life, oozing with overcome trials. _A life spent helping broken souls. _A dedicated life which could find no other salvation than in care ... than in service to others. _A something ... palliative for him, just to fill the void. This lack of those he once loved forever. _A void, stripped of those he still loves raw and that he cannot forget. Help some in their daily life, others in their weaknesses. Accompanying these little people in no way hidden in their dimension, to really do everything: From reading to writing letters, for example. From the payment of invoices, to disputes too, often. From the very learning of a telephone, which has become if not a barrier, a source of downgrading in this defeat of understanding for them - what they feel for some of these elderly ... and I do not not talking about the computer. He saw one cry, because it was "way too complicated" for them. He saw them "feel nothing" as they say ... become "less than nothing" ... regretting the time that had passed and seeing today, their misery, literally ... no longer being able to conceive even the idea of appropriating the connection to something silly. Link things together ... access to intelligence, the possibility of tomorrow. He spent time reassuring, explaining, restoring hope, dismantling the sadness and this incapacity to do ... to undertake, what. When it was necessary to "undo" this paralyzing fear which had so little meaning or raison d'être, he knew how to get involved like no one else. We had to re-engage the learning reflexes - that made them happy then. Relieved a little, behind these tears so dull and although free from all pride - that was the hardest part. Tears tried to make their way through the wrinkles of a face in the hollows of the great courses and submerged the finer furrows of great hopes. They had been good, their lives had been beautiful. Anyway ... He had tried desperately to solve everything for them. The medical follow-up too - ... He dispensed care to the most disadvantaged, the most deprived. It had infinitely more meaning for him in this other part of life than to prefer to save, people who had nothing more than their own life to save ... by their health. And maybe again, give them back the desire for a start ... to "bounce back" - This term was silly he would have confessed to me on this subject - even if they did indeed lack a lot of care .. dental mainly and auditory also, singularly. 3 - After the theaters of war, the dark lands of famines and so many of these collateral victims - ... Bloody wars where the population is sacrificed, those where he had to operate, saved literally and figuratively - ... He s he was completely abandoned to having to recover these sensitive souls who from one crisis of life to another had let themselves be overwhelmed, had let themselves slip ... let themselves die slowly. Populations of women and men, sometimes even children ... abused, mistreated, abused ... people who after many years, no longer knew how to do, or how to address, or behave, or speak or listen, much less hope. ... Even swimming. To catch up and get back on that 'ship' so far away from them now, they had 'surrendered'. These were not on the raft of the Medusa, they had been excluded from it. Working in this way, near people in the backyards of neighborhoods, under bridges or on the outskirts of peripherals, in proscribed corners, relocated from the exercise of social policies to repetitive failure, in the deep countryside, in the woods. ..it remains far from the others, those left for against. Local medicine, associative medicine, almost charitable. A life of small hands, therefore during the day, of nursing at night, but always at the bedside of the sick and of all those he could find to help. These grandmothers, these abandoned, these seniors who live too alone, feared for a long time for some, living on little, waiting for the night, the abyss of their life bleeding from the heart in the eyes of it. The lives of lonely and too old people who no longer have anyone to love, to help, or to whom to smile or to talk to. All these life stories. For this sailor, Bellilois by birth. And who by a life of backpacker as a surgeon, will have been on all fronts. Operating from war to war, confined to emergency medicine most often and innovating or accompanying surgical medicine, to all the others in all the most remote corners of the world. He will have given his life to his vocation. To the care ... to the suffering, to the Others ... when he sacrificed his own in truth, to his home ... to his wife ... and to his children. Who will not have followed or understood or too well precisely. Because he himself was unsuited to this schizophrenia. And even so often, they will have felt and supported ... they will have seen it one day go, go away again and then ... never come back. They will have made their lives this way on the side and without him. The choices of a lifetime ... GrégoryDreyfus © 2013

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MarteenNamorDr MarteenSérie CommotionsGrégory Dreyfus