What a strange way Garnier & Linker and Clara Champsaur did meet : although they are all French and live in Paris, it was in Kyoto, Japan, that their meeting one another happened.

At that time, Clara was studying urushi lacquering at the KCUA, the Kyoto School of Fine Arts, and Garnier & Linker was working on several collaborations with Kyoto workshops, including one specialized in urushi lacquer. The shared taste for matter and craftsmanship started the dialog and gave birth to the desire of working on a common piece.

Back in France, their working together naturally began with experiments in lacquer. But a visit to Clara's studio at the Beaux-Arts de Paris redirected the research towards another axis. In parallel to photography, Clara has been conducting research on engraving for several years. After several attempts, the project was changed and the idea became to create a series of black monotypes on white paper. 

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The method worked is built around the repetition of the same gesture on a plexiglas plate. As the meeting of the ink, the binders and the solvents are impossible to control, if this gesture is repeated a hundred times, a hundred different and each one unique monotypes are created. The idea of presenting the selection under the form of a folding screen seemed quickly obvious to them, the black lacquered wooden windows serving as a frame for the engravings.