Variation #1 Print

I was born in France and at an early age moved to Canada where I spent my formative years. I now live in Spain. I work on several pieces at a time. When I get stuck on one, when I see there is something not working properly or something is lacking but I just can´t figure out what it is, I let it rest for a while (a few days, a few weeks or perhaps months) and move on to another. When I do come back to any of those recessed paintings I might be lucky and find a way out to make them work and other times they just have to be discarded. I don´t throw them away because I find that many can be used as a base or background for a new painting. The old is then integrated in the new work. I consider myself mainly a figurative painter but I do feel the need to wander to the abstract and I usually use the drawing technique for that. The process is what I like best , especially at the beginning when there is nothing to lose or at the very end when the work is so bad that there is absolutely nothing to lose either. Sometimes I am blessed with a free flowing session and I come out of the studio feeling really great. Other times there are days in a row where nothing seems to come out right, but in the end I always get something out of these unsuccessful days for they push me to go further. The imagery I use in my paintings is retrieved from various sources: in my immediate surroundings , also from pictures I take of objects, scenes, landscapes and people , or just images I make up in my mind or the combination of all . Another great source of images are magazines and internet . There are thousands of pictures that I can use and combine in my paintings especially of people. To have a model posing whenever you need them is not so easy to find. However I must admit that there is nothing like painting the subjects live. Objects or people, the feeling is different.