Etude alambiquée I, 2021

Zerka   New & remarkable Artists

Our faces tell who we are.

I have always believed I could detect, even through a speech inflated with confidence, an unspeakable fragility in the face of the one who pronounces it. Something that does not lie.
At the time of the selfie, of instantaneity, of the social mask and the fantasized self, portrait painting is part of a longer time, unchanging, it freezes the being and its emotion, it brings
nuance in a world more and more binary, in debates more and more divisive. The subjects that I choose to paint express with their looks ambiguous emotions with multiple interpretations and invite the spectator to enter in introspection, in dialogue with
my works.

I like the idea of being able to deduce a biography, a life story, from a simple facial expression.
Thus, my portraits tell the story of my subjects, often the story of their fractures, their pains, which I
pain, that I transcribe by the use of the line, broken and sharp.
If a certain violence can sometimes emanate from my art, I always bring a remedy, a band-aid, because the solution to our ills is, according to me, found in optimism, in the sun, in an explosion of colors.

Faithful to my first love, acrylic remains my pictorial technique of choice and, working on canvas, corresponds because of its organic character to my purpose.
The superposition of elements, layers, is the central element of my creative process, as if we were only one
as if we were only an addition of moments, a millefeuille of lived moments.
In this same approach, I like to leave my construction traits visible, thus reinforcing the idea of a personality in the making, of a self in continual renewal.