My Creative World
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Strangeness attracts me.
Worlds in between, visions and statements that are powerful and unique because they emerge from the minds of those unafraid to stick out from social conformism to explore their own truth, daring to reach out to the invisible in order to bring back a new magic into this world. I love when dreams and reality fuse into each other and create the unexpected. My heart sings when cultures come together with the richness of the old and the openness of the new. I draw my own hybrid inspiration from different cultural backgrounds, and from there recreate something more personal. |
When someone asks me who are you really ? I respond, well, that is still aborning and all I know is that I am really friendly but not quite tamed .” |
Biographie
I was born in the Ivory Coast, West Africa and have been traveling the world ever since.
I spent my nomadic childhood and teenage years rediscovering new horizons from the West African continent to Europe where I studied graphic design in Bordeaux in the South of France.
Drawing and painting have been part of my life since childhood.
I remember my father, who was an amazing painter in his own rights, bringing me food at times because I would get so immersed in my creative process that I would forget everything around me,
Time and space included.
I also observed my father paint as a child and felt very influenced by his ways as a creator.
I have been drawing and painting most of my life along with leading a career as a professional singer.
Any creative expression is like a second breath, it is natural and elemental before being labeled in any other way.
I grew up in a nomadic way, constantly discovering new cultures and landscapes, as well as nurturing my observer’s skills and love for adventure. It was a constant source of inspiration.
Being and living in so many different places took me on the path of creating my own.
A big part of my work and inspiration stems from creating other worlds out of all the different information, influences, sceneries, dreams, sounds, memories, encounters and other experiences along the way.
A bit like an alchemist or a scientist.
The animal and vegetal worlds are also very present in my work. I believe they are messengers and powerful creators, and as humans, we have so much to learn from them. They inspire me very much.
I draw my own hybrid creative world out of my nomadic upbringing and lifestyle along with the fact that I am of mixed origins.
I visualize and paint worlds that go beyond the familiar, in all humility, yet stem from personal experiences in their multidimensionality.
I believe that as individuals we are multidimensional.
Being spiritual, physical, emotional, vibrational beings and so much more is directly linked to us as creative people.
Painting to me is deeply spiritual, as are all forms of creation.
While technique is important, I truly believe that being a messenger is also intrinsically part of being a creator.
Some of my work includes digital elements, as I also create images virtually and then paint them by hand on a medium.
I like that digital input can stretch the horizons of possibilities in terms of creation and offer ideas that I may not have been able to come up with by hand.
Sometimes the ideas that I create virtually also become images that surprise me…Stories that I may not have directly imagined.
Being a phygital painter means that I work with and from physical material along with digital input.
Most of my paintings arise with a message connected to them that can be in the form of a poem, a song, a sentence, a word…
I mainly work on wood frames using acrylic paint although I have worked on canvas and used other types of paint and sometimes still do so.
I love working "with" wood because I feel that there is a deep liveliness and rawness in my interaction with this element.
It is not just me expressing my creative vision on a support, it is a dialogue.
I feel it is an experience that we realize together as opposed to me painting on a support.
The wood has a story that requires that I listen to it and respect it.
It carries traces of its life, stains, holes, cracks, that become perfect imperfections if we listen to it and that give strength and a beautiful breath to the painting.
The wood is still alive.