The Black Orpheus - 2017 Painting

French-born American in 1968. My personality is slightly out of sync with the world and early on I felt my difference. To eventually change jobs, I joined an art school, the Académie Malouine d’Arts Plastiques in Saint-Malo. From 1998 to 2004 I studied with Eric BRAULT, Denise MASSON, Isabelle DUBRUL and Jean-Claude CRANCE. In 2006, I began to expose my painting and my pictures. In 2008, I moved to Pacific Grove, California. I attended the fine-art photographers group of Cole Weston, ImageMakers of Monterey. I applied with success to the Pacific Grove Art Center annual show and was assigned the largest room at the Center to exhibit. Unfortunately, I had to cancel because I needed to find immediate income. I obtained a position in Hawaii in the land surveying department of an international civil engineering company. Finally, after 20 years in civil engineering, I decided to end my land surveyor career to pursue my work as a full-time visual artist (mainly painting and photography). In 2010, I started to take pictures intensively and to develop my Free_Lens Project. I attended drawing classes at the University of Hawaii and Community Colleges in Honolulu and I modeled. But a long self-diagnosis which had begun in 2010 led me to commit to a gender transition. The next five years were fully committed to my transition and the ultimate re-assignation surgery. In this process, I decided to destroy all my previous body of work. In 2017, the transition completed, I moved to the countryside of Normandy. My painting work is influenced by geometry, industrial architecture and space atmosphere. Music inspires my imaginary landscapes; my pictorial work expresses my trans identity through their passages and figurative obstacles that I describe in my Artist Statement. My digital work “Free_Lens Project” and “Hybrids” explore ambivalence as well. For now, my time is entirely devoted to developing artwork on large formats with homemade Glycerophthalic lacquers. And music composition made since 1982 has recently, with sculpture, become part of my activities. I have exhibited in France and the USA. I live and work in Normandy.