Through my work, I seek to capture the transmission of fears. Individual fears, like those left by trauma, evolve and are passed on, either vertically, from generation to generation, or horizontally, within the same community. To this end, I have developed different approaches in my preferred media, drawing and video.
As I delved deeper into my research, I turned to fantastical representations to emphasize both realism and to evoke anxiety or anguish. I work mainly in black and white, or with little color, as I find this modality more conducive to initiating an entry into the unreal. This sense of the unreal is then accentuated by frontal and distorted perspectives, repetitions and transformations of motifs, shadows and doubles, and the saturation of my images. I'm inspired by the drawings of Sam Szafran, who also uses the distortion of spaces and the multiplication of motifs to evoke feelings of anxiety or fascination. I often work in sequences, as they allow me to show events unfolding over time, reflecting the gradual development of fear.
I always envision the subject in an environment that will be distorted by the fear transmitted, either by the psyche or by the fear itself. To capture this, I need to experience the landscapes for myself and soak up their atmosphere. That's why I work on my drawings on the spot or, failing that, from sketches and memory.
So, for the Into the Woods series, I went to draw and sketch in the Bois de Meudon, and gave birth to monsters between my trees, inspired by our age-old fear of wolves and other creatures that haunt the woods.
The fears I deal with are drawn from personal stories and blended with universal ones, such as the death drive and fear of emptiness, as in the series of drawings Vertigo, or violence. For example, in Berlin, Breitscheidplatz, 19.12.16, 8pm: Attentat, I evoke the memory of my escape during the Berlin bombing. I'm inspired by the work of Tacita Dean, who makes the intimate resonate with the universal. In this way, in my drawings, I represent almost no human beings, or only humanoid shadows, inviting the viewer to make them their own.
As I delved deeper into my research, I turned to fantastical representations to emphasize both realism and to evoke anxiety or anguish. I work mainly in black and white, or with little color, as I find this modality more conducive to initiating an entry into the unreal. This sense of the unreal is then accentuated by frontal and distorted perspectives, repetitions and transformations of motifs, shadows and doubles, and the saturation of my images. I'm inspired by the drawings of Sam Szafran, who also uses the distortion of spaces and the multiplication of motifs to evoke feelings of anxiety or fascination. I often work in sequences, as they allow me to show events unfolding over time, reflecting the gradual development of fear.
I always envision the subject in an environment that will be distorted by the fear transmitted, either by the psyche or by the fear itself. To capture this, I need to experience the landscapes for myself and soak up their atmosphere. That's why I work on my drawings on the spot or, failing that, from sketches and memory.
So, for the Into the Woods series, I went to draw and sketch in the Bois de Meudon, and gave birth to monsters between my trees, inspired by our age-old fear of wolves and other creatures that haunt the woods.
The fears I deal with are drawn from personal stories and blended with universal ones, such as the death drive and fear of emptiness, as in the series of drawings Vertigo, or violence. For example, in Berlin, Breitscheidplatz, 19.12.16, 8pm: Attentat, I evoke the memory of my escape during the Berlin bombing. I'm inspired by the work of Tacita Dean, who makes the intimate resonate with the universal. In this way, in my drawings, I represent almost no human beings, or only humanoid shadows, inviting the viewer to make them their own.