American on her mother's side, Jill Galliéni (b. 1948) spent her first seven years a long way from her parents, then lived with her actor father At the age of thirty she began a hitherto unbroken series of "dolls", outsize female figures made from various textiles sewn together. At the same time – in 1978 – she began writing prayers to Saint Rita, patron saint of lost causes. In her telling, these prayers "came to me because I couldn't express everything I was feeling; so instead of speaking, I prayed." The outcome is  an illusion of writing, densely entangled lines whose meaning escapes the reader. The loose sheets and notebook pages she works on end up completely filled by these abstract, regularly spaced texts.

Through her prayers to Saint Rita she intercedes both for herself and others, requesting the curing of a sick friend, the resolution of a conflict or the solving of a problem. She writes and draws solely with the ink pens of different colours that accompany her wherever she goes.

Jill Galliéni currently lives and works in Paris.