| ABOUT MY WORK |
For several years, my work has consisted of a series of paintings, generally in square format, on which I have developed an "all over" effect obtained by a methodic repetition of imprints. I lay down the paint regularly to the rhythm of my breath within the limits of my physical endurance. This contact, (touch of pressure), is repeated, back and forth, from right to left, and from left to right - dot to dot, just like a woven oriental carpet. I grew up in the midst of oriental rugs and, perhaps they have subconsciously led to a pictural writing. Besides the actual gesture of the making, my work also presents a duality between paint and its support which reveals itself as an oscillation, a confusion and sometimes even an inversion of the revealed/unrevealed, positive/negative, above/under polarities. In choice of materials, I am simultaneously attracted by their visual and tactile aspects. The support defines the painting and its process : it has its own presence and dictates, in a way, its own rule. Specific effects result from the combination of these materials - support and paint - (i.e. the instability and the malleability of the lead, the fragility and the milky translucidity of the canvas made of marine polyester, the reflections of the iridescent paint). Those effects belong to the material, already characterising it. But it is never alone : colours (painting-tinting....), tools (sponge - fingers....) and supports (linen, marine polyester, cotton duck, wood, lead...) are not definable, but all introduce the dimension of their intrinsic qualities and define the labour, the work, the painting. Since January 2001 in Düsseldorf, my painting took a new turn. I started to unroll the canvas directly on the wall, leaving the edges rolled. This leaves me a freer choice for presentation according to the space.
'What is shown cannot be said'
Ludwig Wittgenstein
(Lecture at Düsseldorf 01.2001, revised in Brussels 08.2002)
