Sunset 04 (2010)

... I was born in 1955 in the French Pyrenees, in a town called Tarbes. But due to the profession of my father, we moved around France a lot as I was a child. At 19 I left France to continue with my Mathematics and Physics Studies in Germany, where I remained until about the year 2000. Then I moved to Spain, having chosen this country partly because of the weather which allows me to paint outside all year round.



But as much as mathematics was a big part of my life since I was a very small child, art never surfaced during my time as a young adult. My whole family was more oriented towards sciences and literature, and art was nothing more than some prints from our well known French impressionist masters decorating our walls. Personally I had anyway stopped showing any interest toward art as I had been totally driven from it by an Art teacher. She had not believed that a painting which we had been given to do as home work was done by myself. She thought I had had it made by a grown-up painter. I was so disgusted that I swore to myself:

Art? - Never again!



I held fast to my promise until a friend in Germany gave me a tiny little watercolour paintbox for my birthday, when I was about 25 years old. As soon as I had put some colours on the paper, the passion arose and from that day to this I have never stopped to paint! But I always paid attention to keep my distance from art teachers, which is the reason why I am mostly self taught. My only foreign teaching was a basic correspondence course in design with a University in Switzerland while I was working as a mathematician in the north of Germany. But my real teachers in art have mainly been my eyes and mathematics. Through my mathematical skills I have learnt to recognise, analyse and solve problems, in whichever field of life they may be. This means that I was always able to judge my paintings, correct and better them according to my own visions (and not according to some art teacher’s vision!)



All my life – and this was already the case as I was a child, a very strong-minded child knowing exactly what I wanted and what not - my decision process was ruled by one law: I live according to my passions, and always pay the most attention to keep enough freedom to be able to offer myself that luxury. It is exactly the same in art, to put it simply : I paint what I love. I also receive much inspiration from life and nature. The tiniest thing might give me some idea for a painting, I start at once, then follow the thread until I get totally bored and most of the time I end up having a whole series! This explains why my work is so diverse: I just follow the winds... and there are many of them and in many directions!



I like everything except oil (too slow, too smelly, too messy, too much preparation to start with...). Which media I prefer at any one time actually depends on my mood. But one can say that I generally prefer fast media, like watercolour, as I am a very spontaneous and impatient pa...