La chambre de la rue de la porte de la monnaie - 130 cm x 161 cm Painting

Painting: Acrylic and Ink on Canvas. 1. What are the major themes you pursue in your work? My researches on entropy, as a mathematician, influence in a significant way my plastic work. In this domain, it is known that disorder is not only the rule but also the unique way of equilibrium. Tensions and resolutions, resulting from the different states of equilibrium and disequilibrium, induce circulations that I explore on the canvas or in the street. I see the experience of artwork as the capacity for everyone to question its own equilibrium. How did you first get interested in your medium, and what draws you to it specifically? As far back as I can remember, I have always divided my time between drawing and music. Mathematics imposed itself. Painting came to me later. Music never left. The use of a constraint as a concept has quickly become an important part of my artistic work. How has your style and practice changed over the years? Over time I figured out my approach is one of a researcher. Both as a scientist and as an artist. In equal parts. As a question of balance, probably. When I understood that, I turned the corner, and my work became more consistent with what I want. Can you walk us through your process? Do you begin with a sketch, or do you just jump in? How long do you spend on one work? How do you know when it is finished? The use of an “single closed line” is a stimulating constraint. It starts with sketches on paper. I build a grid on the background. I draw points of strength and lines of force, as the renaissance painters. This first step, allows me to set the rules. As strange as it sounds, it is the starting point of my reflection. It is, I think, the equivalent of what we call "education". The rules. The framework. But, If I stop here, and, if I simply follow these rules, it would no longer have any interest for me. I would just be reduced to my education. I would only be what the others would have wanted me to be and not what I would have done of it (“Nous Sommes ce que nous faisons de ce que les autres ont voulu faire de nous” - Jean-Paul Sartre). It's incredible how true sounds this reflexion of Sartre for me. After that, everything really begins when tensions grow, when the forms are opposed and when the circulations appear. Behind the constraint of the single line, the idea is not to make a performance but to build a unit. The line stays open during all the process. As long as it is not closed, the painting is not finished. It's a kind of metaphor for the painting itself. When it’s done, I have the feeling of having completed the affair. To have solved it. This “single line” is an amazing raw material for me. A single line that closes on itself like a cell that divides again and again. You do not really know where it is going to. The function of the line become more and more complex, multiple and ambiguous. Sometimes the line fades away to become implicit. Some points can be singular. Indeterminate. Here for example, if you look at those two figures, is she with him or not? Mathematically both are acceptable. But this ambiguity is troubling. You are wondering about the relationship. You build it. You decide of it but, at the end, you leave it opened to our free will. I work to the brink of equilibrium.