When looking at painting as a trajectory through time, the painter wonders how to become part of its continuum. Today an infinite freedom of form and style exists, as many doors have already been opened by our predecessors. The painter strives to show his true voice within his vision of the world. It’s a personal commitment – one that requires utmost honesty, exposing his intimate self. As such, despite years of practice, I feel it is only now my work is truly beginning to resemble me.
This undertaking is as thoughtful as it is spontaneous, thus multiplying the lines of interpretation. It brings with it a constant back-and-forth between reality and its representation; fiction and dream; past and present; strange yet familiar – as much paradox as free association. To paint is therefore to capture these extremes; to confront and ally them, thereby creating a space for contemplation and reflection.
Observation is fundamental. It is the primordial step that allows us to transform what we see; to dislocate time and space. We remain attentive and aware. The inner experience, as the Symbolists describe so well, this deep and mysterious subjectivity, also leads us to images that describe our relationship to the world. The psychological reality in the works of Edvard Munch, for example, affect me profoundly, as well as the fluidity of the contours, his palette and the titles of his paintings.
Painting has the singular power to suggest by color – I must mention here at least Matisse and Gauguin. So how could I resist referencing the latter and his travels in Des îles sans horloges.
An autobiographical dimension can be found in all of my work. Greatly inspired by my many years living abroad, the selection of paintings presented here begins in Mexico. Periférico, for example, comes from a place that no longer exists today but which I passed daily on the way to my studio in downtown Mexico City. It can echo Eric Rhomer's Landscape Metamorphoses, which is focused on the industrialization of the French landscape. "A world doomed to the chaos of shapelessness, to perpetual change, to the unfinished. (...) It is not a question of being for or against "formerly" or "today" (...), but of finding in this metamorphosis, the occasion of a meditation and a poetic reverie. "
Night Vision, is a completely different story. It’s based on a frame from a surrealist film Luis Buñuel directed during his Mexican period (El Angel Exterminador, 1962). The film’s opening sequence mirrors my own arrival in Mexico City – arriving as I did by night in Colonia Del Valle. The cinematic light and shadows cast by the lampposts onto the surrounding luscious vegetation in these unknown streets, simultaneously frightened and fascinated me.
Each painting is layered in meaning – emerging from a reflection or a particular source of inspiration – that I could converse about at length.
I have decided to confront the painting medium by producing works in large scale, which not only strongly contrasts with the intimacy of the subject matter, but also allows, when one is in front, to dive fully, almost physically into the space of the canvas. One of the first times I personally experienced this was in the unforgettable Room X of the Dell'Academia Gallery in Venice, facing the perspectives and fantastic skies of Tintoretto.
Finally, with the aid of color, I aim to capture and restore an atmosphere with subtleties and ambiguities, directing the viewer with only a few clues, allowing him to personally invest in the work. The point is not to explain everything, instead leaving an unfinished impression that appeals to the imagination.
Johannes Vermeer, Rembrandt, Pierre Bonnard, Hammershøi, Arnold Böcklin, Francis Bacon, George Grosz, Edward Hopper and Tal R, to name but a few, are the pillars on which I rely. They are, above all, the ones who inspire me and impel me to persevere.