April 21, 2025
Every return from a trip helps me grow and shift into a higher gear.
This time again, I expected changes, adjustments, and realizations. And yet, every time, it's like a beautiful slap in the face.
So here I am a few weeks after my return, questioning all my habits, all my ambitions, my projects. For several years, I have felt something boiling inside me. Something truer, more 'me', less 'I have to'. I didn't know how to put words to it well. Only images, fleeting desires. And then there it was, in Guatemala, the truth hit me: my hands are itching with impatience to paint. To take the time to create, to surrender myself totally to this new medium, to trust myself, and above all, not to think about it. To let my hands and my eyes create in complete freedom. To not carry any judgment, to learn to accept the beginnings, to accept wanting to do as my mom.
So here I am, for two months I have been painting. I am giving myself a year to see what I have to bring out and discover what I look like through painting. My mind has no place in the adventure. I chain paintings together without thinking, I let my hands express themselves on the paper. Drawing without a commercial objective had become very difficult for me in recent years. So it is a real breath of fresh air to grant myself this year of experimentation without any financial expectations. I immediately knew I wanted to start with gouache. I like its velvety, opaque, and matte side. Here are my first gouaches, without any censorship. I wanted to give up, I made mistakes, I spent 10 layers in some places, I bought dozens of brushes, and I enjoyed every stroke. I like the journey, the time spent, as much as the satisfaction of having finished a flower. I really like the process.
I try not to have negative opinions about these first compositions. I simply listen to what comes to me: what I like and what I want to do again, what I want to do differently, or what I want to try. The rest has no place for the moment.
