Soleil Brûlant

In the Soleil Brûlant project, I explore light, color and form to create mental landscapes of the environment in which I grew up, in the south of France - a brightly colored, sun-scorched land.

In the Soleil Brûlant project, I explore light, color and form to create mental landscapes of the environment in which I grew up, in the south of France - a brightly colored, sun-scorched land.

My intention in this project is to observe the tensions that arise at the boundaries of abstraction and reality, photography and painting. I seek to create emotion through texture, depth, brilliance and porosity by interweaving mediums. I'm interested in the effect that sunlight has on people, objects, shapes and everything that flows from and is created by this light: distortion, shadows, reflections.

Soleil Brûlant takes place not far from Nîmes, in my family home - an old Provencal farmhouse. This is where I was stranded during the pandemic. Unable to leave this place, I began to take a fresh look at my surroundings: a restricted environment, but full of possibilities.

A space I used as an open-air studio, a field for creative study. The project evolved organically, in several stages of experimentation. At the start of the artistic process, I collected and salvaged objects and materials from my direct environment, which I photographed, capturing their contours, shadows and colors.

I then took photos of the materials and pieces of paper reflected in a sheet of mirror. The motifs photographed are already in motion, distorted by the reflection. In these photographs, I cut out organic shapes that become layers in the image, shapes framed in black, like shadows taking shape. I apply paint, pastel and Indian ink to the final print to create unique pieces - organic, almost floral works of the imagination.

Paint acts as a “tool” of light, to illuminate and sublimate the image. The interplay and blending of textures brings us back to physical matter, with surfaces blending together in a plastic intoxication akin to the vertigo the sun brings. My approach encourages reflection on the very nature of reality and the way we perceive our environment. In the Soleil Brûlant project, I explore light, color and form to create mental landscapes of the environment in which I grew up, in the south of France - a brightly colored, sun-scorched land.