Joséphine Baker 2 Painting

Professional since 2006. CONVERSATION IN THE ARTIST’S STUDIO > Arnaud Faugas, tell us about your career path- After a literary baccalaureate in Bordeaux, I followed my father’s advice and began law school; however, I soon realized this was not to be my vocation, and decided to try my luck in Paris, where some of my friends had gone. As I parked my moped in front of the Cours Florent School of Theater, I let myself be dragged onstage. I never burned up the stage, but did discover a great deal about the expression of feelings, something new for me. From one stage to another, I left Paris for London, there to learn the language and become familiar with new cultures. After London came New York, where everything is possible! A few friends and I opened a restaurant on Martha’s Vineyard, an island off the coast of Massachusetts. We worked mostly in the summer, which allowed us plenty of time to travel for several months each year. We would cross paths in London, meet up in Peking by way of Moscow, the world was truly our oyster. Then, ten years later, it was time to return to Bordeaux. > You are self-taught; how did you discover that you knew how to draw? Do you have any particular influences? I still wonder what led me, one day in 1992, to go into my neighborhood newsstand and buy a sketchpad, a pen, a bottle of ink and a child’s watercolor set; and with these instruments to produce my first drawings. Two years later I had my first exhibit at the Cité Mondiale in Bordeaux, and haven’t stopped exhibiting since then, several times per year. I didn’t make my fortune overseas, but I brought back with me a precious memory of reading The New Yorker magazine. Its unusual tone, which mixes literature and illustration, freed my approach to subjects and helped me to find my own style. I fell under the spell of Hirschfeld and Steinberg, both of whom worked for The New Yorker, and their descriptions of American life. Although not wanting to re-create New York in Bordeaux, I wanted to treat my city as though it were a living being, vibrant and full of spirit. > Do you draw or are you a painter? Where is the borderline? I am an illustrator who tells little stories in color. But I also like India ink alone, because it magnifies the black and the white and is a symbolic link between drawing and writing.