Tal Waldman: Mounts, Temples, Traces

Breathing life into art

“Breath (noun)—the air taken or expelled from the lungs.”

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, Tal outlines her latest project, Mounts, Temples, Traces, which will be exhibited at Gallery Cécile Dufay in Paris, France, between 12th–27th September 2025. Inspired by the very breath we take, she examines the roots of her artistic practice and the way in which it has manifested through her exquisite drawing, painting and filmmaking.

Tal Waldman, Monts, Temples, Traces - The Culturium — © Tal Waldman, *Traces*

Breath Landscapes

Breath is an ongoing axis in my work—one of the most powerful and accessible tools we have for inner exploration and transformation.

My engagement with breath began nearly thirty years ago, after my first visit to India, where I was introduced to pranayama, the yogic practice of breath control. These exercises—slow breathing, breath retention, deep inhalations and extended exhalations—are practised across many cultures to enhance vitality, balance emotions, strengthen the immune system and expand consciousness.

Over time, pranayama became part of my personal body–mind practice. But only much later did I realize that breath itself could be not only a subject of art but a medium—an embodied tool through which to create.

Breathing and Drawing

My exploration began through automatic drawing, a surrealist technique originally intended to bypass conscious intention in favour of unconscious expression. My aim, however, diverged from the surrealists: I wasn’t trying to escape awareness but rather to remain fully within it—transforming automatic drawing into a mindful practice.

I wasn’t watching myself draw and sometimes not even the paper. Instead, I was using drawing as a way to observe myself—my breath, my body, my sensations. The hand moved freely but not unconsciously. It moved in rhythm with the breath, with full awareness, as I practised pranayama on paper.

A Journal of Mindful Automatic Drawing

Eventually, I began to structure these experiments more deliberately. In April 2020, as the world confronted the trauma of the COVID-19 pandemic, I started a mindful-automatic drawing journal, short exercises sometimes breath-based. These short sessions became a quiet ritual—an intimate space for reflection, focus and release, often serving as preparation for larger works.

As my sensitivity to the process deepened, the drawings became more intricate. I began to explore shifts in perception and the physicality of line, developing a personal visual language. Through this process, I explored the intersection of mindfulness and creativity—how art could become not just expressive but contemplative.

This journal of mindful automatic drawing was never intended to produce finished works. It was a way to cultivate presence—a process of drawing from the inside out, connecting body, breath and gesture.

Breath Landscape: Mapping the Invisible

A pivotal moment came after a trip to Brittany. After months of lockdown, that week by the sea felt like a literal breath of fresh air. Inspired by the landscape, I began to map my breath onto paper in a new, deliberate way. These drawings—both structured and fluid—became what I now call cartographies of breath: quiet records of presence, vulnerability and resilience.

In this series, I began to distill breath into its most elemental visual form: each inhalation, a line; each exhalation, a line.

Following pranayama exercises, the number of lines per inhale and exhale varied. While drawing specific places, I kept track of these breath counts and documented them directly on the drawings. Gradually, the compositions began to resemble landscapes—abstract cartographies of breath. Small numerals are scattered throughout many of them, recording the breath sequences and pranayama structures that shaped each piece.

This exploration culminated in a more structured project, included in the collaborative book Visualizing the Invisible (2022), a 500-page volume of research, practice and reflection. My chapter, titled ‘Breath Landscape’ marked a turning point in how I approached drawing through breath.

Traces

Over time, a body of work centred on breath has emerged—its most recent iteration is the series Traces. These large-format pieces, rendered in ink and acrylic on paper, feature backgrounds in varied shades of red—using primary pigments to generate vibrancy and inner light. Layered over these surfaces are choreographed gestures: breath-based imprints of inhalation and exhalation forming a visual rhythm.

The process demands a conscious, embodied presence. Minimal, repeated gestures build fragmented narratives that echo long-standing themes in my work—migration, movement, memory. The title Traces evokes both the physical act of path-making and the invisible, intimate rituals of breath. In this series, breath becomes a living cartography—a weave of energy, rhythm and silence.

Over the past few years, with each change of season and throughout the summer—by day and night—I have been exploring light. I find natural situations or create simple installations, which I capture in short videos, photographs or drawings. Using natural sunlight or moonlight in minimal ways, the series—Light Drawings—focuses on contrasts between dark and light, visible and invisible, material and immaterial. It also explores the more elusive qualities of light: its movement, rhythm and what I call its breath. Within this context, I have produced a number of videos capturing what I refer to as Light Breath.

Mounts, Temples, Traces

Mounts, Temples, Traces will be exhibited 12th–27th September in a solo show at Galerie Cécile Dufay, Paris, France. The exhibition is a body–mind journey, a spiritual experiment made visible through form. Other series in the exhibition include works inspired by Mount Analogue, René Daumal’s unfinished initiatory novel about seekers ascending an invisible mountain. These include gold-leaf drawings and sculptural, paper-woven temples—sacred, intimate spaces that embody the search for transformation.

Gallery Cécile Dufay
in front of 6 AVENUE DECHAMPAUBERT,
VILLAGE SUISSE #27, 75015 PARIS
Métro : Lignes 6, 8, 10 LA MOTTE-PICQUET GRENELLE

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