It is not at all innocent, this encounter between the gray clouds that advance imperceptibly and the halo of the moon placed on them like whispers in the ear. The sky is not loaded, however. It is white as the moon can be. But it can also be black, whereas the moon never is.

The moon is absent in the paintings. Nothing allows us to say that it is the moon, especially since there are many other sources of light. And the clouds that it is supposed to illuminate may very well not be clouds, but minerals floating in the sky. Perhaps this is only a question of an attempt at deciphering that has nothing to do with the paintings. However, the hypothesis deserves to be explored and compared with what is painted.

We only need to look at everything again to see that it is not simply a meeting between clouds and the light of the moon, celestial pebbles lit from within. Often, there are three clouds in each image, or two plus one, or three times one. And the interpretation that can be made of them varies according to the case.
3 = prime number
2 +1 = addition
3 x 1 = multiplication
Already mathematically, the operations are different. Other interpretations dig the gaps even deeper as the gaze remains fixed on Mounat Charrat's paintings. At all levels they allow for distinct and paradoxical readings.
3. The source of the Danses macabres is the poem "Le Dit des trois morts et des trois vifs", which is a dialogue between three young lords and three skeletons, their doubles, who remind them of their inevitable destiny and the omnipotence of death.
2 + 1. That which is added to something, the logical sum of several concepts or propositions, the union of whole numbers into one by adding the units. The result is a sum that aims for totality.
3 x 1. Without having left any written work, Pythagoras nevertheless stands out as a demigod, at once a scholar, a miracle worker, and a prophet. His multiplication table is famous to this day. It still applies in an operational game of the first ten numbers. It even goes so far as to suggest that the earth is not the center of the universe, but that with the sun and the planets it revolves around a central fire

Mounat does not linger on the number three. She revolves around it without straying too far from it. It is as if she had been caught in its beam. Her canvases are neither too empty nor too full, even if sometimes a cloud crashes on the edge. Nothing is broken in the aerial imbalance. Everything is there, without being subject to the attraction of the earth.

The gaze changes direction. Momentarily and never completely, it leaves the sky with the clouds and the halo of the moon. The eyes have moved and scan the horizon. The sea is there in all its expanse, serene and asleep near the coast, covered in waves when it moves away from it. In the foreground, a lighthouse watches over the entrance to the port and watches for intruders. Tirelessly, it turns on itself and sweeps into the distance. None of this is visible in Mounat's paintings.

The rays of the lighthouse stop on dark shapes, which float, motionless, on the water. They are in the painting and the light of the lighthouse which illuminates them laterally too. What a strange spectacle which, at first glance, has nothing to do with the context of any reality.

Pebbles grown like islands advance silently into a limitless past. They are carried by invisible sea monsters in the depth of a great void. Continuing by swimming a kind of reverie, one must merge with the sea to be able to touch with one's hand the smooth and sensual surface of these rounded pebbles. The nails clinging to the surface of these stones of salvation draw strange writings. Fiery, intrepid signs, fragments of bodies, withered plants, murky molecules, misshapen geographies, senseless territories, sterile veins, stagnant waters, stitched wounds, broken anthills, frozen mud, flows of tears. These traces are read and reread to the rhythm of breathing, rather the panting of survival. When the sea stones approach each other, they try to seduce each other by attracting attention. The light has dimmed. Whispers are filled with secrets that come to life.

The island becomes a meeting of islands, like regulars at a café. From one island to another, conversations are in full swing. Plots are hatched. Seductions germinate. Arguments break out. Dreams come to life. Fingers dig in and start tracing shapes again, this time, joyful and dancing scrolls, remains of manuscripts written on papyrus, children's hieroglyphics, fireworks, cries of love, sparkling notes, celestial constellations

The explorer continues his journey through the landscapes of Mounat. He gets lost in a labyrinth of memories buried in his memory like concentric circles. The uneven path

Through holes and collapses is punctuated by small stone turrets placed one on top of the other. At the end of the journey emerges a tall standing stone, a megalithic monument, a cult building, a menhir. Others appear, arranged in circles, and form a cromleh like the monoliths of M’soura south of Asilah, in the middle of a mattoral, a sort of arid scrubland.

It is like a vast sanctuary linked to solar worship and the fertility of the earth. It could be that these menhirs rise above a tomb, a room built and covered with stones, then with earth. Bodies reduced to dust rest there. The bones that have become mosaics still outline shapes, vertebrae or small bones. The site is captivating. It is impossible to escape its embrace.

Man has unlearned his language until he can no longer understand it. Stones escape from Mounat’s paintings. They cannot be caught up like lost time. Tirelessly, one must return to the starting point, review the paintings, look at them again and invent new traces that lead to other encounters, to other stories.

If Pierre were..

Travels and paintings,

Text by Jean Pierre Van Tieghen, August 2007.