Tal Waldman: Cosmic & Musical Improvisations in Blue Minor

The anchoring power of breath

A dialogue between conscious breathing
and the spontaneous unfolding of gesture
through a process of divided attention practice.

TAL WALDMAN is an award-winning, transdisciplinary artist living and working in Paris, as well as a regulator contributor to The Culturium. Of Israeli-German origin born near Tel Aviv, she draws upon the diverse cultures she has encountered during her residencies in Israel, India, Germany, Greece and France through a variety of different media, including sculpture, drawing, painting, design and art installation.

In this month’s guest post for The Culturium, Tal shares details of her most ambitious installation to date, Cosmic and Musical Improvisations in Blue Minor, which forms part of a major exhibition, Cosmofania: Les métamorphoses du sacré, which opened recently at Abbaye de Maubuisson, a Cistercian nunnery at Saint-Ouen-l’Aumône, in the Val-d’Oise department, north-west of Paris, France. Running between 11th October 2026 and 21st February 2027, the event features 12 other visual artists and is curated by Marie Ménestrier and Emmanuel Reiatua Cuisinier.

Cosmic and Musical Improvisations in Blue Minor comprises elements that are intimately connected by utilising the concept of breath as an anchor for both art and conscious practice. Seven large-format painted panels create the walls of a sanctuary or temple, at the centre of which is a garden of glass resting on a bed of luminous white sand, which together with two video installations reflects and transforms the light of the church.

The glass works are part of a much larger research project developed over five months between Paris and Meisenthal, near Strasbourg, in collaboration with the CIAV (Centre International d’Art Verrier) and the Glass Museum of Meisenthal, which comprises around 50 pieces in total. Some have been donated to the Cosmofania exhibition, while the rest will be presented at the ST-ART art fair in Strasbourg, between 13th and 15th November 2026.

The project will then continue at Galerie Cécile Dufay in Paris, between 26th February 2026 and 3rd April 2027, before coming full circle in 2030 with additional pieces at the Cité du Vitrail, seven years after Tal’s solo exhibition, La Voie d’Expérimentation, in 2023. Tal’s previous post on breath, Mounts, Temples, Traces, also outlines her pneumatic journey back to self.

cosmic and musical improvisations in blue minor

As part of Cosmofania: Les métamorphoses du sacré at the Abbaye de Maubuisson, I present Cosmic and Musical Improvisations in Blue Minor, an installation bringing together several interconnected strands of my artistic research on breath as an anchor.

At its heart, seven large-format painted panels unfold throughout the space, extending a practice of breath and improvisation in which the rhythms of inhalation and exhalation become gesture, line and composition. They resonate with a central glass installation, developed through research at the Centre International d’Art Verrier (CIAV) in Meisenthal, exploring memory and the transformation of matter through breath. A video exploring the metaphorical breathing of water and light extends this dialogue between material and immaterial dimensions.

During the opening, I created a sand ritual within the installation. Its form emerged through a dialogue between conscious breathing and the spontaneous unfolding of gesture through a process of divided attention practice.

Bringing these different strands of research together, Cosmic and Musical Improvisations in Blue Minor explores the relationships between matter and the immaterial, memory and presence, body and consciousness. Each medium becomes an attempt to make perceptible and visible what ordinarily escapes our gaze.

the painting process: breath, body, gesture and trace

I believe the key to understanding my work lies in the relationship I seek to establish between the body, breath, gesture and trace. This relationship informs not only the structure of the paintings, which emerges from a conscious breathing practice inspired by pranayama, and attention division, which I have practised for many years, but also the physical relationship I develop with the work throughout its creation.

My painting process rejects premeditated calculation in favour of deepening an authentic state of attention, operating between the structure of improvisation and pure intuition.

The initial layer emerges from the body’s breath, acting as a structural grid—a founding rhythm that is either preserved or concealed. Each successive layer becomes freer and more intuitive, responding to the constraints, imperfections and openings left by the preceding one.

At times, I cover the surface with a field of small dots, allowing only fragments of the underlying history to show through. The painting develops through a precise network of improvised relationships, in which each new mark responds to real-time stimuli: ambient sounds, music, bodily tension and conscious thoughts. The mind is not the master; it is merely one influence among many.

When I hesitate or struggle to find a direction for the work, I may interrupt the gesture and take time to walk on it, lie down on it or even sleep. These pauses and moments of physical contact can take on an almost ritual dimension, like a dance or silent ritual that allows me to reconnect with the work before continuing. In some of the photographs, you will see me working barefoot directly on the paintings, or sitting in front of a work before beginning.

The body thus becomes at once an instrument, a space of listening and a point of encounter with the work. Slowing down allows a decision to emerge rather than forcing one into being.

Only later in the process do I introduce controlled, classical techniques to anchor the composition. The result could be almost understood as a modern form of conscious pentimenti: a rigorous, factual archive in which breath, gesture and trace converge to form a kind of sacred architecture.

This is also what I hope visitors might experience within the installation: an invitation to slow down, pause, look and perhaps breathe consciously. A space in which time, body, matter and trace can resonate with one another.

glass: memory, transformation and transcendence

The glass works belong to a broader research project developed over five months between Paris and Meisenthal, in collaboration with the CIAV Meisenthal (International Glass Art Centre of Meisenthal). The project comprises approximately 50 pieces and will continue to be presented through exhibitions and collaborations over the coming years.

The hybrid glass forms are created by bringing together two halves: one derived from a historical mould belonging to the institution and the site memory, while the other half I sculpted and moulded myself. These two halves are joined to create a hybrid space into which the glass is blown by the glassmaker unting past and present.

The encounter between a contemporary form and an inherited memory introduces the notion of duality, echoing the human condition and the relationship between matter and spirit, physical presence and the immaterial. It is within this context that I added wings to certain glass forms. They evoke transcendence and resonate with both the breath and the sacred dimension of the installation.

Some of the glass works have been donated to the Cosmofania exhibition. The wider body of work will be presented at the ST-ART art fair in Strasbourg, 13th–15th November 2026, on the stands of the CIAV and Galerie Cécile Dufay. The project will then continue at Galerie Cécile Dufay in Paris, 26th February–3rd April 2027, before returning to the Cité du Vitrail in 2030, seven years after my 2023 solo exhibition, La Voie d’Expérimentation.

sand: gesture, impermanence and ritual

The sand introduces another dimension: that of the ephemeral gesture and ritual. It draws, among other things, on my experience of India, where I have travelled extensively. At the entrances to homes, one often encounters designs drawn directly onto the ground. Created as small prayers or ritual gestures, these patterns are destined to disappear and be drawn again. Their significance lies not in their permanence but in the act of creating and renewing them.

My sand ritual follows a similar logic: breath and gesture give rise to a form that is temporary by its very nature. The act of creating becomes a way of establishing a relationship with a place, cultivating a sense of belonging and opening up a sacred dimension.

During the opening, I approached the ritual as a live exploration of divided attention. After a short meditation, my left hand embodied the rhythm of conscious breathing while my right hand traced lines with sand, responding to the vibrations of the central glass garden. The gesture brought together breath, movement and the emergence of form in the present moment.

video: the breathing of water and light

The videos extend an experimental research I have pursued for several years, exploring the relationship between water, light and the pulse of living systems, understood as a form of breathing.

Made deliberately using a low-tech approach, directly on an iPhone and without post-production, apart from the addition of sound, these sequences privilege observation and spontaneous emergence.

The movement of water and variations in light create a pulse that is sometimes almost imperceptible. By looking attentively, unexpected events may appear within the image: small, unpredictable manifestations of life that might otherwise go unnoticed. As if water was informed.

Together, the paintings, glass, sand and videos form a constellation of interconnected experiments. Each medium approaches breath from a different perspective, while contributing to a broader investigation into presence, memory, consciousness and the relationship between the visible and the invisible.

Post Notes

• Feature image: © Tal Waldman, Cosmic and Musical Improvisations in Blue Minor
• Tal Waldman’s website
• Tal Waldman: Mounts, Temples, Traces
• Tal Waldman: Glass and Light
• Tal Waldman: Directed Randomness
• Tal Waldman: Golden Scars
• Tal Waldman: Komorebi
• Tal Waldman: Silence
• Rainer Maria Rilke: Letters to a Young Painter
• John Ruskin: On Art and Life
• Mark Rothko: The Artist’s Reality
• Agnes Martin: Writings
• Kahlil Gibran: Poet, Painter, Prophet
• Wassily Kandinsky: Concerning the Spiritual in Art
• The Culturium uses affiliate marketing links via the Amazon Associates Programme

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