ジョリと日本との関係はアートワークの中で育まれていたようです。高校時代に仙台に留学を果たし、その後同じ宮城県の白石でアーティストインレジデンスで滞在していました。東北地方での民族的な行事や習わしに大きく影響を受けたように、初めて会った時にも強く感じました。
彼女は、日本縦断の旅の途中で、BIOMEに立ち寄りバッグから、くるくると（布だったか忘れました）くるまれたこの作品をとりだしました。ジョリの日本語とBIOMEの英語で、しばしの間コミュニケーションをとり彼女はまた旅立ってゆきます。
たからもの展の作品にも増して、彼女が取り出したアートワークがお面。日本では能が代表的な面ですが、各地方に何かに成り代わる、何者かに乗り移るが如く面の文化が多くありますよね。現代の日本人よりも一層、面を通じて自らのアートに日本の精神性を深く結びつけているようでした。
It seems that Joli’s relationship with Japan was nurtured through her artwork. During her high school years, she studied abroad in Sendai, and later stayed at an artist residency in Shiroishi, also in Miyagi Prefecture. It was clear from our first meeting that she was deeply influenced by the ethnic events and customs of the Tohoku region.
While traveling across Japan, she stopped by BIOME and took out a piece of artwork wrapped up in something (I can’t recall if it was fabric or not) from her bag. Joli and BIOME communicated briefly in Japanese and English, and then she continued her journey.
Even more than her works displayed at the Takaramono exhibition, the artwork she took out was a mask. In Japan, Noh masks are the most well-known, but many regions have their own mask cultures, where masks represent transformation or possession by some entity. It seemed that, more so than contemporary Japanese people, she was deeply connecting the spirituality of Japan to her own art through the use of masks.