Gesture is at the heart of my work. The foundation of constant exploration, it is the source of form and a territory of thought.
Since my beginnings, I have explored painting as a process. I follow in the footsteps of gestural practices and certain trends in 20th-century Western art—art brut, lyrical abstraction, action painting, arte povera, minimalism—and connect with Eastern culture through calligraphy and the works of the Mono-ha (Japan) and Dansaekhwa (Korea) movements. I aspire for the work to be read as much in the act, in the gesture, as in its result, through my presence and a resonance with the material, the moment, the place of creation, and the audience.
My early works (2013–2017), based on rubbing and scraping, are part of an almost ethnographic exploration. Large tribal-looking figures—the Rencontres series—emerge, reflecting a direct relationship with the unconscious and the dreamlike imagination. This period draws on a primal, visceral energy, similar to that associated with primitive art: a space of universality where the gesture brings out archaic structures.
The chance encounter with the paint roller opened up a second phase (2017–2020), marked by the non-reproducible repetition of the gesture, in a clear departure from the figurative nature of the early works towards abstraction. Through this simple tool, I opened myself up to random experimentation with my prepared roller (a nod to John Cage’s prepared piano): each pass of my roller, prepared and saturated with paint, created a suggested landscape, an unexpected topography made up of layers and rhythms. Chance became a driving force, revealing images that seemed to emerge rather than be constructed.
The direct use of the hand (2020 to present), as a return to the original expression of my desire to paint, constitutes for me a rediscovery of the essence of the gesture. Without tools, the movement of the hand, arm, and body becomes more immediate, more present in the moment, without restraint, what I describe as the “sincerity of the gesture.” . » This phase belongs neither to the primitive explosion of my beginnings nor to the mechanics of the roller, but to a form of gestural evidence, my gesture in its obvious singularity.
The Traces series poses, in an archaic way, through the initiation of a gesture and the creation of traces by the hand, the subject of the origin and interdependence of elements, colors, and the transmission of memory as an obvious feature of the structure of any system.
The Ecritures series, a continuation of Traces, is experienced as “meaningless” calligraphy, capturing the moment and forming a writing beyond language and the usual written word. These writings are nourished by what constitutes our presence and its manifestations (gestures, breaths, words, etc.) and the interaction with everything around us (the influence of places, elements, etc.). “Everything is writing” becomes the heart of my message, the expression of an energy that connects.
Through my painting, I wish to convey a space where movement and calm resonate. I place art and my artistic commitment in a process of serenity and calm. The Propagations series (since 2024) bears witness to this, a double meaning, an incursion of living matter into a silent space and the unfolding of silence in a bubbling movement. Propagation is a movement at the center of life, interacting with silence and the space it leaves and takes. It is a contemplative work of the hand and the breath.
My work is also expressed through performances, reinforcing the relational dimension between my presence, the audience, the venue, and the artwork. In performance, these othernesses generate resonance effects that naturally influence the very nature of my gesture. Performing in places dedicated to art, but also in everyday places, in front of audiences immersed in a particular state of mind, that of a “localized moment,” allows these resonances to unfold further and find broader expression.
The gradual purification of my palette to a green composed of nine colors manifests my desire for chromatic identity and visual economy.
I experience my painting as a way of being in the world rather than a representation of the world: a space where calm, attention, music, philosophy, dance, and perception come together. Each work is the trace of a moment of existence, an inner state, a relationship between my body and the reality of the moment.
The spontaneous energy of the hand in the moment and the detached reinterpretation of my work after the fact lead me to move from the body to the mind, to construct a thought, to explore philosophical spaces (Jacques Derrida’s work on traces and origins inspired the Traces series, while Nishida Kitarō’s work inspired the body-mind relationship), scientific (the cosmos), artistic (dance, the body in psychological fields) and spiritual (Zen).
I develop my practice in a dialogue between instinctive energy and meditative consciousness, between chance and coherence, between archaism and timelessness through a gesture, in resonance with matter, the moment, the place, oneself, and the other.
My studio is in France in the Lille metropolitan area.