the bathroom Painting

What/who inspired the work? An in-depth reflection in the bathroom. What do you hope its viewers will feel/think? The solution. Why did you choose the medium, subject matter, style? I like my bathroom. 1. What are the major themes you pursue in your work? As a mathematician, my research on entropy influences 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 balance. 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 me. 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? It starts with sketches on paper. I build a grid on the background. I draw points of strength and lines of force, leveraging techniques used by the Renaissance painters. With this first step, it 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 is incredible how much the truth from this Sartre quote resonates 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 single 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 experience. To have solved it. The use of a “single closed line” is a stimulating constraint. This 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 will go or which form it will take. The function of the line becomes 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 on it but, in the end, you leave it open to one’s free will. I work up to the brink of equilibrium. Sometimes, people who own my paintings contact me. This is very disturbing, because, you understand by listening to them, that the process is still going on, and even more, that I have nothing to do with this anymore. I am no more than the observer of their interpretations. You have to accept it. 1. If you couldn’t be an artist, what would you do? An architect. 2. Who are some of your favorite artists, and why? Le Corbusier because he is an explorer and a precursor; Wassily Kandinsky because he is both a theoretician and a practitioner in art; Robert Rauschenberg because he knew that disorder is equilibrium; Pablo Picasso because he never stopped to invent. 3. What are some of your favorite experiences as an artist? For several years, I have been conducting with a friend, professor in oncology, a thinking on the theme of Care, and more generally on the theme of the Other. I suggested to him that we use an anamorphic mobile as a basis for creative thinking. This steel sculpture is formed of a single line whose meaning is double. The viewer turns around looking for a vantage point allowing to see a triangle, or its contradictor, the circle, from the opposite point. The shape is, of course, three-dimensional and complex from everywhere around except from these two conjugate points. The rule remains the geometrical disorder. We used this object to illustrate the complexity of the relationship to the Other and in particular that of the relationship between the patient and the caregiver - both have two elementary visions, sometimes simplistic, of the same reality at a much more complex level. These two basic forms act as bridges for a dialogue about a common concern. 4. What was the best advice given to you as an artist? I will single out four: • My music and harmony professor taught me the virtues of listening and observing - he illustrated his words with the Mahler's Fifth Symphony. • My scientific mentor, a Russian Professor of Physics, taught me the importance of integrity in research and, as a consequence, in art. • I understood the importance of the "accident" in art by listening to recordings of Gilles Deleuze’s lessons "Sur la peinture" delivered in 1981 at the Université Paris-VIII. • Last, I feel very close to this quote from Thomas Hirschhorn: “My sculptural vocabulary is chosen so as not to exclude people, but instead to implicate them in my work - or rather, implicate them in the world. That's what l try to do. That is why I work. That's my political statement." I keep these guidelines as the cornerstone of my scientific and artistic process. 5. Prefer to work with music or in silence? With music. 6. If you could only have one piece of art in your life, what would it be? I would choose "Guernica" from Pablo Picasso and "Barge" from Robert Rauschenberg as two sides of a single coin for me. 7. Who are your favorite writers? I am not really a regular reader but I always keep close to me some readings important for me. • Especially, I really enjoyed reading "Les mots" by Jean-Paul Sartre. • "Point and line to plane" by Wassily Kandinsky is one of my bedside books; • I regularly re-read “In the Studio of Alberto Giacometti” by Jean Genet; • I am pleased by reading or listening to conferences given by Gilles Deleuze, especially when he speaks about "lines of flight". « My territories are out of grasp, not because they are imaginary, but the opposite: because I am in the process of drawing them. » Guattari et Deleuze — A thousand plateaus.