My work uses history and the past to address the moment we are living in now. In Paris, the Marché aux Puces de la Porte de Vanves is a flea market filled with history, for better or worse. Moving through its corridors is an onslaught of information: objects, histories, light, and shadow. You encounter everything from discarded technology and lawn sculptures to vintage silk scarves and objects taken from Cameroon, reminders of the colonial systems through which France once controlled trade and restricted economic autonomy.
The market becomes a place where eras, human choices, and the consequences of industrial progress converge. As visitors search for bargains or objects to repurpose, they also encounter traces of the past embedded in everyday things and the capitalist systems that encourage us to overlook them.
I want my paintings to feel historical in their approach. Using traditional techniques, including wet-on-wet painting, linseed oil over a grayscale ground, and stand oil to avoid a slick varnished finish, the works can initially seem to belong to another era. On closer inspection, they reveal themselves as contemporary. Their compositions draw from photography and street scenes, while their framing borrows from cinema. At the same time, they retain the immediacy and vitality of a study.