Lucie Penaud’s book brings together a series of illustrations that do not form a story in the traditional sense, but rather a journey through a world that seems to extend beyond the images themselves. Mysterious children adorned with flowers and seashells, decaying automatons, departing boats, objects with an uncanny presence: each scene opens a door to a possible narrative, without ever defining its boundaries.

Her work is a balancing act. On one side lies a world of expansive clarity, welcoming and filled with the joy a child might feel on a bright, sunny day. On the other, a more ambiguous realm, mysterious and elusive, where everything seems imbued with a certain mischief. Between these two poles, her fine, clear line traces the outlines of invented objects, characters, and landscapes, while color abstracts, blurs, and blends them together. Everything appears both distinct and uncertain. Like a dream upon waking, these images leave us with a feeling that is at once intimate and distant, familiar yet impossible to define.

Exploring questions of memory, of becoming human or becoming object, and of the boundary between the animate and the inanimate, Au creux de l'oreille brings to life a world that is sensitive, strange, and profoundly singular.