Interview with Lili Chomat:
On art, grief, and love
Natalia Dembowska
When did you start your artistic endeavours?
I started photography and performance when I was 23, during a particular period of my life where love and grief were tightly mixed up. I was experimenting with my first lesbian love story when I lost my beloved grandfather, who was one of the most important people in my life. These two events were an earthquake for me, identically and politically. I had to express love in any way possible, writing theatre plays to make the dead live again and taking pictures of my first girlfriend to celebrate life in all its aspects.
What role does art play in your everyday life?
Art is just the way I am. I don’t do art consciously; I just do it cause it’s saving me and keeping me alive. Expressing my emotions through images and words is healing me. It helps me to face every step in life. Otherwise, I think I would just explode. I have too many words, too much emotion, too many ideas. My soul is begging for relief. This is where I meet art. Art is my relief. It’s my mental health.
You do different types of art. How does each thing you do satisfy you as a mode of expression?
Acting and taking pictures are extremely similar to me. It’s about creating an atmosphere, whether you’re on stage, on a movie set, or in front of a camera. I come from theatre, and I think it allows me to bring drama to my pictures, to build some unforgivable scenography, and to know how to communicate emotions through the body or facial expressions. Photography also nourishes my acting: it’s all about the consciousness of your body, the symbol of a gesture, the potency of a look.
A lot of your photographs are self-portraits. How do you relate to your image in photographs? Is it like a role you step into or something more personal?
Indeed, some people might think I am my own muse. This is true in a way: I use my body as a testimony of a white young queer woman in the 21th century, wondering how to embody my flesh, how to get free from stereotypes, how to live my desires and how not to be ashamed of who I am. I just consider myself a lambda person. It’s not an ego trip, it’s just that I am my own material. I am aware that a lot of people, a lot of women, could face the same insecurities or concerns as I do, so I try to be brave and to use my image as a way for people to project themselves, to find hope or new icons that might help them.
What are the recurring themes in your art?
I am obsessed with the body. I think it’s such a place of political oppression. Our bodies, especially queer or female bodies, are baring so much shame inherited from centuries of patriarchy and Christianism. I am fascinated by my queer friends, lovers, siblings. Their existences is a day-to-day revolution: how they love, how they sing, how they use make-up and wear clothes, how they protest and how they care for each other. I wish I could build a Mount Olympus for all of them, where they could rest and be safe and healed from their wounds. Intimate and political wounds. This is why holy is a the center of my work: I am asking everyday who is God, where is God, how to find a God that would love us, no matter who we are, not matter who we love, no matter who we fuck.
One of the strongest themes in your photography centers around Catholicism. How do you engage with that theme? What does it mean to you?
I grew up in Lyon surrounded by catholic iconography. But mostly, I grew up being obsessed with death. What terrified me was not the idea of dying properly, but the idea of being separated from my loved ones. I decided at 6 years old that I should get baptized so God would welcome me into his kingdom. I found a way to be forever and ever with my people, even after death: that was such a perfect plan to kick death’s ass! As a teenager, I got literally sick of catholicism and was not able to walk into a church for years. Until I lost my grandfather and felt the need to connect with the hereafter. Meanwhile, I discovered I was a lesbian and a feminist. How do I reconnect with faith with my new identity? How could I find a God who would accept me the way I am? Today, I define myself as spiritual, and I find beauty in Catholicism but also in other religions and philosophies. I am a believer.
Queerness is another big theme of your work. Could you elaborate on what role it plays in your life and everyday life? How do these merge?
I always felt like a weirdo. As a child, I was extremely observant and sensitive. Growing up, it took me a lot of time to find my people. Loneliness was my everyday life until my early 20s. As a lot of queer people, I had suicidal thoughts growing up, I thought I did not deserve to live cause I was feeling so inappropriate all the time: my clothes, my way of speaking, of seeing the world were always considered weird or outrageous.
Queerness made me realize it’s okay to be different, to be neurodivergent, to have other desires than to create a family as a wifey of a man, like my mother and my grandmother and all the women before them did. I had to let go of everything I thought I knew because I was just deeply unhappy. It took me some time to admit it and to accept that I will always be discovering who I am until the end of my days.
You grew up in France. What was this environment like for your artistic expression? How did you find your tribe?
I don’t come from an artistic family, and art has never been present in my education. I found my tribe once I moved to Paris and started drama school. I had to be confident in myself cause I had nobody to reassure me. I think I found my chosen family, mostly thanks to theatre and social media. People started to write me and offer me the opportunities to exhibit as I was sharing my work on Instagram. Then I started to be invited to lesbian events, and started to meet my closest friends and eventually my actual lover. My whole life today is because of my art, because of my queerness, and because of the people I met. I deeply thank them every day for the love and happiness they bring me.
Artists can have a hard time making a living and realising their artistic projects. How does the process of sustaining yourself while creating art works for you? Can you make a living from your art, and if so, when did that happen for you, at what part of your journey?
Today, I do not live thanks to my artwork. I always have to find some other jobs to save money and be able to live in Paris. My lifestyle has a clear impact on my work: I always try to work at the least expensive cost. People have already told me they thought I was wealthy because I use a lot of clothes and jewelry, I shoot in beautiful places. But all my accessories come from second-hand shops, from the closets of my grandparents’ friends. I always work with very few people for my shoots or my shows. Also, I do not hesitate to shoot in public places: churches, beaches, streets, and shops.
What advice would you give your younger self, looking back?
I would send so much love to my younger self. I think this is what I have been missing so, so much. I would highlight my singular nature and celebrate my existence with a lot of tenderness. Today, I would say to my younger self: “Never stop believing - you will find your people, you are worth it, you are loved”.
Do you like to create with other people or do you stick to your individual projects?
I love creating with other people. This is why I love theatre so much and working on a movie set as an actress. I just feel like I am a part of a higher mechanism where everyone plays a role to make art happen. When I work on my projects, I need to be surrounded by my friends and listen to their advice and artistic points of view. My pictures are nothing without the kindness of the people who follow me into my adventures, my ideas.
How do we keep united as artists but protect ourselves as individuals? What do you think?
I think there is a fundamental difference between how you are perceived as an artist in the public sphere and who you are at home with your people. I try every day to choose when I perform and when I don't. I mean when I wear my Lili artist’s clothes and make-up, and when I am anonymous at home. If I am gonna be excessive, or if I just want to be invisible and keep quiet. I think artists need a lot of time alone, or at least far from the noise of society, people, social performance. I have different sides to my personality. Building a safe zone with people who love you deeply for who you are, and not for what you produce, is necessary.
I also try to see other artists as other human beings, first and foremost. I try to be as kind and as understanding as possible, and I only put energy into artists who have beautiful and loving souls. Love and care keep us united as artists.
Pictures provided by Lili Chomat (@__lililarose)
Including Telma Bello