Since you transform your experiences into your artwork, we are curious, what is the role of memory in your artistic productions? We are particularly interested if you try to achieve a faithful translation of your previous experiences or if you rather use memory as starting point to create.
In my figurative installations or in my drawings, memory plays a role, in part. In the series of Cloud Boxes, I place the wadding, the lights and the characters in old wooden drawers, found in flea markets, loaded with a lost history, to recreate. They evoke me spaces of curiosity where one searches, where one finds unsuspected treasures, forgotten memories. These scenes are then reminiscences of an emotional experience that becomes an imaginary memory, as if by anticipation. They evoke a story that is sometimes a bit mine, as in installations, The Sassy girl, The girl with the watering can, or in the video, A very short yellow story or with Dora, which evokes my mother in its funambulic history. Some of my drawings clearly depict the Corsican mountains landscapes of my childhood holidays. But in general, memory freezes me.
Besides, she is figured, fixed in the photographic images. So I'm tempted to put characters in motion (still) more and more. When I get tired of staging, I return to the light and the colors. And when I create abstract works, photographic or video, it is, however, a completely opposite approach. I am here and now and that is what makes me feel good, which frees me from a cumbersome memory. In the lightness of the movement and in its fleetingness, I float in a sensation certainly ephemeral, present, presence, but salutary. I free myself from the weight of memories in oblivion; an escape again. In the photographic series entitled, I was about to write, I explore the colors and imprints left by the letters of a luminous keyboard, suspended, floating, entangled in a random weave that re-trace the evanescence of the words that escape. A written memory that fails to fix itself. It's a bit my relationship to writing these days.
What is the role of technique in your practice? In particular are there any constraints or rules that you follow when creating?
I like working on the lighting of natural light, depending on the path of sunlight in the workshop, usually in the morning and at night for better darkness. Apart from this, I have no constraints. Everything is possible. I do not use digital manipulation. Just my smatphone. It's a bias. As for the luminous works, I choose a source object, often a toy, a multicolored bouncing ball, balls, a light up Frisbee, a retro-friction plane … Any light source can do the trick, a reflection on a wall, lights of the city, glitter, iridescent gift wrap, a mix of textures, different materials; it calls for an idea that brings another and so on. Everything makes sense. And in an almost naturalistic search, I experiment all kinds of visual captures, trying many speeds and angles of shooting, by modifying the lighting. I try to bring the object to disappear; and unrecognizable, it becomes something else. He then touches on the elsewhere, he exceeds his reality to become an explosion of colors and forms on-real. It's a breeze to de-build and rebuild. Special effects, magic tricks. It's a re-creation, a joyful recreation. Each time, the performance is very physical. My body and my breathing play an important role. I am agitated in the continuous effort of the frenetic movements of my smartphone, barefoot, anchored in the ground. Then I catch my breath by viewing the results of the capture. The revelation is often a childlike astonishment, as a wonder, again, before the metamorphosis of the source in its rebirth. Then comes the laborious work of sorting. And then I start again. I redo a series of shots. I am still searching until I consider that I have approximately surrounded (?) the source. When I approach the figurative in the drawing or the installations, the approach is much more peaceful and relaxing. For bright or non-luminous videos, I often choose the slow motion which, I find, gives a particular depth to tracking shots and to the overall result. As if the film, which is closer to life, should call for some restraint, concentration, attention. I navigate between abstraction and the figurative, between high speed and the depth of slowness.
How do you see the relationship between emotional and intellectual perception of your work? In particular, how much do you consider the immersive nature of the viewing experience?
I like to be surprised by the experimentation and surprise the viewers. As in a sense of delight, take them away from themselves, as I was during the creation and as was the source object, I would like them to feel a certain lightness through poetry visual works. The questions I am often asked are: How did you do that? What is it ? It's a magic trick. Perhaps I will film the performance of the shots or will I present it live to the public? I'm thinking about it. But at the same time, it would be like a magician who would reveal his special effects.
Some people prefer my figurative creations because, I suppose, they facilitate the identification, in the emotion that the exposed scenes can provide. Others like abstract images, no doubt, because in their aesthetics they leave room for a certain freedom of interpretation.
I hope that the spectators will experience, in their turn, this feeling of liberation, of aerial lightness that I seek to unveil, that this one travels, according to each individual, by emotion and / or by reflection.
The theme of your latest artistic production?
In questi ultimi mesi la mia produzione si è arricchita di un nuovo tema: l’ignoranza artistica, tutti dipingono, tutti si sentono artisti, tutti vogliono esprimersi con l’arte pittorica ma molti non conoscono né studiano la storia dell’arte ed ecco qua che troviamo dei riferimenti, delle prese in giro rivolte ai finti artisti ed è proprio da questi ultimi che nasce l’idea provocatoria delle mie opere che nei titoli e nelle composizioni si ispirano ai grandi nomi della storia dell’arte e ai giochi di parole “Pollo-Polli-Gallo”, “Van Coc”, “Chi è Pollok”, “Poll _Gauguin”, “Pollo della Francesca, Cha-Gall” sono le mie ultime ispirazioni.