We are among your sirens. What do they tell us about?
They tell of the ambiguity of sirens. The ambiguity that leads you to the bottom, of the pitfalls in the journey of our lives that we have to overcome. Because we know sirens well, but we know them little. We know the kind mermaid who falls madly in love with a human and leaves her world for him. But we also know the evil mermaids who attract boats and sailors, only to sink them to the bottom of the sea. We know the mermaid with the fishtail well, but we forget the mermaid that Odysseus saw, a woman's head on a bird's body. Sirens speak to me. They are chimeras, and that necessarily interests the artist.
How do you talk about your sirens?
In my sirens, there is grace, of course. There is water. There's also the ether with stars. I didn't make them the way we're used to seeing them. Instead of adding a tail, I added ribbons, which makes the grace even stronger. Simply because I saw them like that.
After the crosses at the Tarbes Tourist Office, did you move on to acrylics?
It's an acrylic spray. Then it's a stencil. And I finish with oil paint, which is my favorite medium.
So they're mermaids in oil and water!
Yes, that kind of duality, that ambiguity too. And especially the stars at the bottom, which create movement. A mixture of things, that's why I really enjoyed working.
And always in series?
I work in series. I consider them to be doors that I open. Through coincidences. And from then on, depending on the techniques, I juggle, and it simply falls into place.
Do you also juggle techniques and supports?
The support is also a coincidence. For the Sirens, it's marine chipboard. It's the format I liked. However, it's a disaster to work with. Most of the time, I work on canvas, whether on a stretcher or not. The crosses were without stretchers because I used late 19th-century wrought iron crosses under the canvas to create a relief. Abandoned crosses that I put back where I find them.
You moved from Paris to the North, then to the Hautes-Pyrénées. Does an environment change your work?
I've always been close to nature. I didn't want to spend my life in Paris. I moved between Lille and Valencienne to work in a Regional Natural Park. I was very happy, and indeed, from that moment on, I worked a lot with plants. But I continued with something more metaphorical, even more spiritual.
What are your current projects?
I always have several projects underway. Because oil requires a long time. I always rotate through several paintings to continue painting while waiting for another to dry. With oil, we say "siccater."
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