paysage intérieur 1 (2018) Photography by Patrick Blanchon

Bored with the world of business, I decided to go back to activities more in line with myself. Thus in 2006 I settled as an independent to teach drawing and painting in Oullins (69). A return to basics since I had attended the Beaux Arts in Paris in my youth. But my life course took me to photography at that time. For more than 10 years, I was a photographer of architecture, reports, musical instruments, shows, etc. Then the silver photography disappearing, I converted myself into the "photography of opinion". I held a position in an international polling center.
I have always painted since my childhood, it is for me a need, a "breathing" that fits in my family history since my mother of Estonian origin was painting and my Russian grandfather had graduated from the Beaux Arts of Saint Petersburg. Although having attended Fine Arts and having been trained by different painters, I consider myself more as a self-taught.
Painting for me is not just painting, it's an adventure, an experience, an emotional journey that is renewed with each new canvas.
The theme that comes up most frequently in my work is that of "Wandering" which was the subject of my first exhibition in 2011 (gallery of three Maries, Lyon 69005). My research is always the same: Express departure, separation, exile in its various forms. A way to talk about my family history and reconnect with "the ghosts of the past".
The representations can be abstract or take a figurative form and although having explored several techniques, the oil remains my favorite. I always leave a background, that I work in successive layers without preconceived idea. The disorder is set up, everything is unbalanced and chaotic until I decide to give a direction. The important thing is this "freeze frame" decision-making moment that looks like a kind of wrenching. There follows a moment of appeasement and freedom where the chaos is put in order to leave room for the table.

• Nationality: FRANCE
• Date of birth : 1960
• Artistic domains: No artwork available yet
• Groups: Professional Artist Contemporary French Artists