The anthropologist, portrait de Valeria E.
huile sur toile, 100×100 cm Coll. particulière
“I am touched by your subjects, but your treatment lacks singularity… What I like about an artist is singularity, what makes him unique and identifiable.” I am told this reflection which I gladly hear and I therefore take the opportunity to remind or clarify the intention that guides my work. The modern era loves singularity and its ostentation, which is fair game since it is the era of the homogenization of individuals, of statistics and anonymity, what Robert Musil called the man without qualities. The motif matters less than the painter’s manner: this is the foundation of figurative or abstract expressionism. And each twists their gaze and hand to make style, uniqueness, and identifiability: the brand, they say in the world of commerce. As far as I’m concerned, subjective singularity does not interest me: it’s the singularity of the painting that interests me. Does it allow me to see the world, beings, the meaning of the present? It is the singularity of the presence of things, beings, life that I seek to paint, not the illusory singularity of the self. The painting is a meeting between me and the subject in the light of the eye and the hand. It is successful when the meaning (life) becomes visible. Technique is at its service.