Melancholic Woman Print

An exacerbated sensitivity that altered not only my apprehension of the world but also my relationship with time and, consequently, the way in which I fit into each of them, manifested itself in me very early on. The evocation of this obvious fact may seem superfluous as it has been the lot of many other artists – if not in fact all of them! – However, in the particular family and social contexts in which I have evolved since childhood, such sensitivity was, at best, assimilated to vulnerability, when it was not a symptom of a mental disorder added to the defect of a puny body whose health was already too fragile. And the mere intuition that difference is actually a force to be proud of and to cultivate is not always enough to overcome the pangs of loneliness in which it plunges you. Fortunately, in each of these critical moments when I felt on the verge of giving up, I was able to hold on to the benevolent gaze, the love, the faith of an exceptional woman capable of tuning into my frequency, like injunctions to persevere. Today, at this stage of my life when I have reached a balance, albeit a delicate one, I felt the need to humbly pay tribute to these women by using a language that transcends the all-too-limited language of words, that of art. I depict them in scenes where my mere presence, even as a simple observer, implies a deep complicity, given their intimate character. I depict them with voluptuous curves that some would rightly describe as generous, greedy, I depict them unveiled in order to show the body freed from any hindrance to movement, from any complex or modesty that would tend to make it conceal, in the absence of any obscene ulterior motive, the erotic character that could be suggested stemming only from a desire for physical communion complementary to a communion already consented to on a spiritual level. I represent their multitude of facets through the repetition – more precisely, the layering and juxtaposition – of a simple elementary form: a drop, a flame; by the use of a multitude of colours, solid or metallic, by playing on their nuances, their complementarity, contrasts and reflections, by the use of a multitude of mediums and materials to accentuate the reliefs, or to alter the density of the colours, the way in which they intermingle. With the intention of giving the representation of the body a universal as well as a timeless dimension.