HEART Painting

It all started when I was a child, when I would go along to the slaughterhouse with my dad, who was a shepherd at the time. These images marked me for life. At first buried, they followed me in my unconscious through adulthood. In 2001, when I was an arts student in Aix en Provence, France, they definitely came back to me in the shape of sculptures made of fabric hanging from the ceiling with butcher hooks. Today, I am an antispecist, and I fight for animal rights. When I started painting, I would make huge abstract canvas that, I already knew, were just a background waiting for substance. The substance started coming to me in an expressionist way, it is organic, it highlights the flesh, the bones, and limbs. It is isolated from its background to give it more intensity and presence. I then started teaching painting in different institutions (mental hospital, private workshops, community schools), but I developed an autoimmune reaction to spirit of turpentine and had to reinvent my art. This is why most of my work is done with acrylic while I add finishing touches with oil. This allows me to get contrasts with the material and the finish, while playing with shine and matte.