Black Fire

“The justification for art is the internal combustion it kindles in the hearts of men…the gradual, lifelong construction of a state of wonder and serenity. “
– Glenn Gould

Back Fire brings together a series of photographic works, most of them shown for the first time. These works chronicle the formation of my identity as a French/Canadian artist over the past fifteen years, highlighting my relationship with painting through the use of photography.

The images in this series present luminous forms that unfold in hotel rooms, in nature or in front of sheets of paper that have been turned into construction materials that are cut up, torn, and glued together. These forms are drawn or painted on with direct or reflected light in front of a camera mounted on a tripod. For me, it’s a matter of making marks from the exhaustion of a gesture or a dance. An existential cry coming from the body, as if to manifest my presence without using my own image. From these erratic performances carried out in a state of urgency come images of moulting and hatching.

I switch simultaneously from photography to painting: I use photography to paint, and if I paint it’s to make photographs. Painting has the capacity to move me deeply, while photography animates me, igniting a desire for images. I seek to achieve the emotion of painting by using the immediate gratification of digital photography as an engine of creation.

Nature drives my research, inspiring me with its multitude of forms. The richness and interconnectedness of its elements offer a potentially spiritual perspective and impose humility in the limits of form. I see it as an inexhaustible source of wonder.

The internal combustion of which Glenn Gould speaks is a back fire that is lit in which flames consume and destroy, creating a void that provides a critical distance between ourselves and the madness of the world.