Artistic Approach

Life will sometimes put you through terrible ordeals which can leave you broken, destroyed, incapable of formulating any coherent thought, whatsoever. The loss of a loved one is one of them. Through the grieving process that follows, existential questions become a major part of your life, to such an extent that your perception of things is altered.

Hence, it was during the summer of 2015, while enjoying a walk on the beach and taking pictures that I was suddenly struck by a thought. Everything I was photographing was… DEAD, inanimate, lifeless! Dead algae, rotten wood, empty shellfish. And although it was such a lively picture… all of it was just remains!

Paradoxically, in my pictures, I saw LIFE! Remembering some image transfer techniques I learned during my bachelor’s degree, I saw how I could RESTORE life to all of these shots. Suddenly, the words « immutable ephemeral » came to my mind, persistent as a leitmotiv. This is how my actual artistic approach began to take shape and I started my production.

Passionate about painting, drawing, photography and travelling, I use all these venues to create. Chasing atmospheres and moods, I start by capturing in pictures places, objects or fleeting moments, forever frozen in time. Through a process of digital transformation of these photographs, I then proceed to do a synthesis of the image, returning it to itself, to its simplest expression, a black and white frame.

While this may seem to be a purely practical step to get a basic drawing, I want to emphasize here that this gesture is not at all trivial. Indeed, even if my approach first came about through this reproduction process and that it was initially approached in an instinctive and intuitive way, my artistic intention is much more precise and defined than that. The image transfer is a crucial part of my work.

Let me explain. The picture, like a moment STOLEN FROM TIME, has seized the spirit of the instant or the subject, its visual bagagge, its basic IMPRINT. Through the numeric intervention I perform when I remove all color, leaving only its composition markers, I proceed to its execution, its return to nothingness. I release its essence and specificity keeping only the imprint that I mentioned before. The basic image is now relegated to a draft state and this “pictorial baggage” becomes the basis for the future work.

Although it would be much easier to have the resulting picture printed perfectly and directly on a chosen support, I truly prefer the artisanal process of the handmade image transfer. Very much the same way life does, it leaves its traces, scars and imperfections. These become an integral part of the artwork and symbolize everything that leaves its marks on us during our time here. In addition, the process in itself, all the « peeling » required to remove the paper allows me to have a precious and important physical proximity with my work. Every centimeter of surface is soaked, peeled, scrubbed, scraped and cleaned until the black and white frame appears. Not to mention the symbolism of the gesture! It’s a bit like removing the old skin of the artwork, allowing for its mutation, its new incarnation to take place. The next step is the revival of the picture through painting, drawing, like a gestation process which will reveal it under another form, a parallel and renewed dimension. In other words, when I apply VIBRANT AND LIVELY colors on the canvas, I really feel like I am breathing new life back into something that no longer existed.

I first began by experimenting and getting familiar with the technical aspects of my method such as the image transfer, the application of glaze color essential to maintain transparency and the finishing touches with ink or charcoal that give me the definition and contrast that I want.

Now that I am fully at ease with the process, the symbolism and exploration are taking an increasing place in my work. New preoccupations and themes are emerging, including the chiaroscuro technique which, to me, symbolizes all the dichotomous aspects of the soul, the endless ambivalences of human beings.

More recently, fascinated by the many facets of our species, I am introducing a certain allegory in my work through the use of characters. Wishing to push even further my approach that is to (re) give life, I try to increasingly exploit the photographic aspect of my work by trying to infuse my subjects with a three-dimensional aspect. My ultimate goal would be to represent these statues as if they were trying to escape from their marble prison, reach a dimension, an identity of their own, becoming real, TAKING LIFE and trying to get out of their frame.

In conclusion, it would be exaggerated to say that my artistic production is revenge towards this life who took someone so beloved from me. But, I can easily say it helps me to realize that this IMMUTABLE cycle in which we evolve, as small EPHEMERAL beings, is a perpetual route of change, evolution, death and rebirth and that all that lives, all that dies… can sometimes RELIVE too!