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Visual artist of the Anthropocene
Self-portrait grappling with the news. Bedridden.
© Adagp, Paris, 2024.
Acrylic, gesso and tissue box on wax, cotton wool and wood.
42 x 40 x 15 cm. 1,5 kg.
When I see the state of the world and of the human brain, and I see that the majority don't care, I oscillate between two positions: "recovery position" and "brace for impact".
The tense man.
© Adagp, Paris, 2021.
Violin, acrylic and gesso on wax and wood.
60 x 40 x 10 cm. 2,2 kg.
Perfectionist in a hurried society, anxious in a precarious society, hypersensitive in an impassive society, gentle in a society which hardens, contemplative in a society glorifying the performance, esthete in a world which is standardized, I am dissonant.
The ropes of my back tighten, my neck twists, I squeak, I squeal, I moan.
Pain and grief.
© Adagp, Paris, 2022.
Acrylic and gesso on wax, wadding and wood.
61 x 40 x 18 cm. 2 kg.
Tell me.
Tell me that you too feel like the Earth is spinning way too fast right now.
Tell me that you too see how the Living clings, runs out and gets ejected.
Tell me I'm not the only one feeling nauseous.
Tell me that my sadness is legitimate.
Tell me my anger is healthy.
Tell me my fear is justified.
Tell me I'm not crazy.
Hold me tight in your arms.
Help me get through my emotions.
Remind me that trying to reject them would increase their intensity tenfold.
Keep me away from anesthetics: screens, alcohol, drugs, medication, work, consumption.
Tell me again that sadness and joy use the same emotional channels, that to cut yourself off from one is to cut yourself off from the other.
Protect me from the injunctions to appear positive and constantly happy.
Tell me again that no one is made to live a superficial, resigned and meaningless life.
Tell me the story of collective bursts.
Help me slow this carousel down.
Loneliness.
© Adagp, Paris, 2022.
Acrylic and gesso on wax and wood.
61 x 40 x 6 cm. 1,5 kg.
I feel your presence by my side. You settled down heavily, and you cleared the way around us. Space and time have expanded. Naked to myself, tiny, I now taste my contingency, my absurdity, my insignificance and my vulnerability. The smell of emptiness sneaks into my nostrils; scary, dizzying. My entrails knot, my back tenses, my brain sounds the tocsin. The temptation is great to scare you away, to replace you with an easy diversion, a click, a swap, a background sound. However, I choose to preserve you a little longer, frightened and fascinated at the same time. I then let my emotions infuse, however sour, acrid or bitter they may be. Their clouds pour out slowly in me. I surrender. Images catch me, stories are woven. I refocus. And I calm down, reassured to have been able to cross unscathed this sea populated by monsters.
My eyes open, I freeze ideas on paper.
Solitude, I am grateful to have you regularly by my side.
The diving board.
© Adagp, Paris, 2021.
Acrylic and gesso on wax and wood.
61 x 40 x 28 cm. 1,6 kg.
Teenager, short, thin and frail, the pool was really not the place where I was most to my advantage. The diving board even less.
Saturday summer afternoons at the municipal swimming pool with friends were an opportunity for me to envy the manly jumps that were linked in front of a swooning female sex.
Faced with the pressure of seeing myself try, I climbed without conviction the ladders that led me to five meters in height, to the top of the ridiculous: shivering with cold and fear, bag of bones subjected to the wind and my emotions, I shamefully gave up most of the time to jump this height, which has become disproportionate by dint of looking at it.
The humiliation then continued with my clumsy descent from the narrow ladders, disturbing one by one the people I had already made to wait for a long time for nothing, to sit down sulkily under the mocking and disdainful female gazes.
As an adult, each of my life decisions puts me emotionally at the top of this damn diving board.
As an adult, I always shiver in front of the void of the unknown.
As an adult, the stakes always seem enormous to me.
As an adult, going through my fear is always difficult for me.
As an adult, I always add shame and withdrawal.
As an adult, I remained this anxious teenager.
Procrastination.
© Adagp, Paris, 2021.
Acrylic and gesso on wood.
61 x 25 x 4 cm. 1 kg.
I will write the explanation tomorrow ;)
The "golden" cage.
© Adagp, Paris, 2021.
Bird cage, paper, acrylic and gesso on wax.
30 x 22 x 39 cm. 1,4 kg.
Locked in an individualist, productivist and consumerist model, I deeply feel the cost that the material comfort that is sold to me weighs on biodiversity and the climate.
Leaving this model implies overcoming fears of downgrading and lack, of changing our outlook and imagination, and creating meaning, resilience and bond: bond with oneself, bond with other Living beings, and link with the magic of what is beyond us.
The man with the mad head, half tornado and half guy.
© Adagp, Paris, 2020.
Pastel and gesso on polystyrene and wood.
68 x 60 x 13 cm. 3,2 kg.
Personal hygiene has steadily improved over the course of human evolution, and with it, large and devastating epidemics have all but disappeared.
Mental hygiene, on the contrary, has deteriorated sharply, with in particular the development of stress, exposure to neurotoxicants, junk food, digital hyper-connection, isolation and inequalities.
Mental disorders * become epidemic: the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated in 2014 that 27% of the adult population in EU countries had suffered from mental disorders at least once during the year former.
Approximately one billion people worldwide, of all age groups and in all geographies, are affected by neurological disorders and their sequelae.
In March 2007, a WHO report announced a doubling of dementia cases every 20 years for the next decades.
Wouldn't it be time to move to a society centered on the well-being of the Living? With pride of place for positive education, psychoanalysis, meditation, access to sport and unspoiled nature.
* Depression, schizophrenia, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, bipolar disorder, anxiety, eating disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorder, autism, post-traumatic stress disorder, etc.
Sources:
https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sant%C3%A9_mentale
http://www.who.int/mental_health/neurology/neurological_disorders_report_web.pdf
Tired of being confined.
© Adagp, Paris, 2021.
Mirror and acrylic on wood.
140 x 122 x 6 cm. 8 kg.
A mirror is integrated in the table, at the level of the glass.
The visitor who passes in front of the painting therefore sees his reflection in it. He is found both physically behind the confined (that is to say also confined in the dark room), and in front of the confined on the other side of the glass (therefore free and in the light).
Which goes to show that freedom comes perhaps by stopping and looking directly at oneself.
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