ARTWORKS
BIOGRAPHY
ARTICLES
INTERVIEW
CONTACT/PURCHASE
Where do you live, what do you do?
I live in Le Mans, a mid-size town in France, I ‘m over 40 years old and I’m a full-time painter. My work is split between Street Art and paintings on canvas. I have taken a path at odds with the current trend. I came from painting on canvas to Street Art whereas there are many artists who usually work in the street and who used the canvas at one point because of opportunities with galleries or buyers that wanted a more permanent work.
I am completely self-taught, I was a musician in several groups in the 80’s, then I started working as a graphic designer and one thing leading to another, when internet came, I became very interested and I started working on graphic designs for websites, I went to pixel, I designed mobile phone interfaces, and so on… I had a good job, I was an art director, and at one point I said “enough”! I didn’t know where I was going, I just wanted to change my life. And then things from my past during the eighties came back, from when we used to make music, i.e. stencils on clothes. We made everything ourselves, fanzines using photocopy machine at the time when DTP was an artcraft and not computer-based. Ultimately, I think I missed these roots. I was working in a virtual world, smooth as a screen, and I think I needed to move to the material world.
A distinctive feature of my work is that I don’t paint directly over the wall, I often paint life-size characters in 5-6 layers of color, which takes too much time to paint in the street. I can’t have the effectiveness of some who work in 10 seconds without being seen. With the street, there is a need for a form of visual recognition, a need to be seen. For me, it’s important to keep this act free. Because as soon as you paint on canvas, it disconnects you from a section of the population which – just like you - cannot afford to invest several hundred dollars in a canvas painting. Street Art allows you to stay visible, open to the public. Initially, I came to stencil in order to promote an exhibition. I painted great bull terriers of 1 x 1 m for one of my first exhibitions in a bar of Le Mans. And I realized they almost had more impact than the exhibition itself. This is what people kept in mind anyway.
Tell us about a particular street paste session.
One of my most significant memories was in London last year. I pasted a bulldog terrier on a door from a building site early in the morning, it was still night. And I realized later in the day light that the dog was bigger than the door, blocking it. But the workers had preferred cutting the painting, following the door opening, than removing the piece. The bull terrier was still complete.
I also have a good memory of my assignment in London at Bricklane in May 2008 because I love the brick walls which mould and curve the paper.
In May 2008, I found myself by chance in London the same weekend of the Cans Festival to take pictures and go to an appointment with a gallery. I was aware of the event and I went there, after having checked the address on the internet, and because I was hopeful, I took my posters in my bag. At the entrance, I tried to explain my way of work – in my bad English - I waited in line, I entered and I pasted. Later in the afternoon, my posters had been removed, I imagine that the organizing committee of the Festival had rejected them and ruled them out because they were not painted on the wall. The rules were implicit and at this time my work was a mixture of stencil and screen printing.
I’ve been a bit rejected but this event was a real turning point, I was fascinated and stencil really came into my work at that time. I was over-motivated when I returned home; I worked without interruption during several days perhaps by need of recognition. I saw great works, I watched Hush working and it was a great pleasure and discovery. English stencil artists are very good and have their own sensitivity. The French have no real common pot, each working according to its rules and personality, perhaps we’re more into aesthetics, working on multi layers and concerned about details. The English are more into impact and effectiveness, with a very strong social message, I think about Banksy, of course, but there are many others like Azrail or K-Guy.
I work a bit with galleries, but I didn’t meet the one. For the moment I sell most of my works on the Internet. I think that the artist need to meet somebody one day and that from that time, complicity is created when the artist plays its role as an artist and his agent and the gallery owner also play their own roles. And this meeting will be primarily based on mutual trust. I think a lot of artistic careers are based on such meetings. I’m waiting.
How would you describe your style?
(...) I present a lot of life-sized characters with an attitude I like and which I believe represent the greatest possible impact in the street. I work a lot with Photoshop or Illustrator, these are tools that I master. This gives stencils in 5-6 layers. I am new to stencil and therefore I use my background to explore ahead. My engine is curiosity. I choose my pictures on the web, on a flim, but I would like to work more with my own pictures, I started doing photo shoots with staging, but it takes a long time and it’s a profession to be a photographer and to direct models. Moreover it’s the music that inspires me, I work with music, I listen to a lot of soul and when I like an artist, I want to do his portrait. (...)
As canvas, I mix a lot silkscreen and stencil. These are two pleasures that are indispensable to me now.