Born in 1988, I trained in the classical traditions of oil painting at Stephen Kovan’s workshop before graduating from the Beaux-Arts school in Lyon.
In 2022, I started working on the Anthropocene concept, keen to explore the intrinsic connections between painting materials and our current ecological realities.
My research examines the material legacy of our species. If we project ourselves thousands of years into the future, what will define our geological era? A technological stratum, rich in plastics, alloys, ceramics, altered carbon isotopes and synthetic chemicals mixed with unusual fossil distributions. Unlike previous life forms that left biological traces in sedimentary rock, humans have created an industrial civilisation capable of fundamentally altering planetary chemistry. As a painter, I started to create what I am calling humanity dust, a unique medium recipe holding the memories of our human activity.
I collect various materials of our world, bricks from crumbling Victorian facades, limestone from southern England cliffs, concrete fragments from demolished structures, and subject them to processes of dissolution and refinement. Soaked in acidic baths, ground to powders, they undergo their own accelerated geological transformation in my studio to become the foundation upon which colours and light find their way. Depending on where my work is created and exhibited, I source core materials from that specific place, making each piece geographically rooted in its environment; with each location offering its own topology of accumulated matter.
My painting technique has evolved to serve this conceptual framework. Moving beyond classical oil on canvas, I create topographic surfaces with these powdered materials, then apply traditional pigments mixed with oil and contemporary acrylics. I seek to erase my own presence from the work, eliminating brushstrokes and gestures until colour appears to have settled naturally, like minerals crystallising in geological silence. The pigments themselves carry their own narrative. Natural cobalt and cadmium are becoming scarce due to economic and climate factors while synthetic alternatives multiply, disrupting ecological balance. These realities have reshaped my artistic practice to reflect both this synthetic abundance and the natural depletion in my palette. As natural matter transforms, the paintings themselves become metaphors for our world’s inevitable change. This work is not only about loss, it is about memory, sedimentation, and the quiet violence of progress. It asks us to consider what kind of geological record we are creating, and what traces of ourselves we choose to forever leave behind.
"In twentieth-century painting, generally speaking, and with a few exceptions, colour is no longer associated, nor even confused, with a drama or a narrative, but rather with the emergence of a painter's thought that is both research and meditation; like a long and patient reflection on the material itself."
Jacques Laurans, Pierre Soulages, Trois lumières