Dialogue. Festival international d’art

« Dialogue : tradition et contemporanéité » Festival international d’art de la Dordogne

Cette exposition ne constitue pas seulement un hommage à l’art ; elle est aussi un moment où, face aux désordres du monde, des artistes venus d’horizons différents se rassemblent. Guidés par une ardeur sincère, nous cherchons ensemble à nous rapprocher de la vie et à poser sur la réalité un regard plus attentif et plus doux.

I’ll be exhibiting ‘The tourists’ my triptych, which is finally completed to the best of my ability.

I find it hard to categorise this oil painting which I’ve battled with for over a year. It’s an attempt to combine the classic and the contemporary; combining ideas from early renaissance painting, Romanticism and imagination. Last year I got the chance to visit Italy, to finally see Giotto’s frescoes in Assisi, Uccello’s Battle of St Romano as well as Pompéi and Etruscan tombs. In between these testaments to past civilisations, I was on my phone checking on what felt to me as the degradation of our contemporary world. I seemed to be both a tourist in in the past and a tourist in my own time, but it made me realise that things move in constant cycles.

I knew from the beginning that I wanted the Tourists to be sitting peacefully in the sun, unaware of the chaos, but it occurred to me too that they were a little like Roman emperors, a little bored by the spectacle. The statues have lived through many changes. The buildings are imaginary or real. Things are falling or moving and changing. I hope there is a sense of foreboding.

The middle panel was the trickiest part. I changed it three times. I wanted to portray an image which was intemporel, portraying the floods and fires and the impermanence of the world we live in. In the end it seemed important that there was nothing in the front plane for the Tourists to be looking at, it’s an empty theatre set. They’re oblivious.

I have no idea what I feel about this painting now that it’s finally come to an end. Trying to paint something with a ‘message’ is odd for me, but I felt compelled to try. I don’t usually write much about my work either, I hope that the painting will stand up for itself, but a few people have asked me and maybe it does need some explication.