Malek Lehoussine

I have always been drawn to nature. Years ago I left Paris for a house deep in the countryside. It was this move that awoke my passion for gardening, a passion which has resulted in a large, mysterious, meandering garden around our house, and a passion which forms an essential connection to my work as a painter. In order to be able to paint I must work in this garden, for it is this work that immerses me completely in the immense space of the sky, the forest and the grove. I am deeply effected by the ephemeral and the fragile, which is why I often paint all of the stages of a flower: the bud which in an instant will be open, to the fall of the petals.

It is for this same reason that I paint the bees, butterflies and dragonflies which are an integral part of the world of fruits and flowers and vegetables. The fact that my subjects are always the same is of small importance. What is important is to render the sensations, the vibrations, the light and the life.

When one paints one is in a moment that will never return. One begins again and again to try to capture this living material and this light which is always escaping. The essential element in my work is this back and forth between painting and garden, outside and ins...