Brutalist Be – Felix de Boussy
1. Where were you born and where are you from ?
I was born in Ostend, Belgium.
2. What is your first memory connected to the art world ?
Probably when I in the school, reading the Tintin’s album The Broken Ear, where a very cool pre-columbian idol is stolen from a museum.
3. Have you always worked in the art/design field ?
Yes, I studied fashion design in Paris and Milan.
4. What led you to the design creation ?
I don’t know really, who knows those things? I think is natural in me that, was just for accident, as with almost everything in this life.
5. How would you describe your creative process and it influences ?
I just see a room or whatever and I begin to think in its decoration and style, so the different furniture pieces flow to my mind. The influences are also very varied, from ancestral or primitive art to the most modern one.
Then…
I like drawing lines to kinetic to each other’s, so we have jigsaw, so I can draws in separate pieces to create something.
6. Could you describe a typical day of your work ?
I don’t have nothing typical, so all I do is special, hahaha, but, I used to start very early, in the morning, working on different pieces, because the process takes some stages I had to wait among them, so, in the meantime, I work in other designs.
7. Why did you choose the specific materials you work with ?
Well, I like and know the materials I use, because they are the most suitable.
8. What are the technical particularities of your creations ?
Etched and cutting, to work with acids you need to be very careful, and your technique has to be quite fine.
9. What advices could you give to beginning artists who would like to create sculptural design works ?
First of all, please be yourself, don’t you mind what other people could think or say.
10. If your works had to belong to a design movement, in which one would you define it ?
BRUTALIST
11. What designers and artists have influenced you ?
Perhaps Joaquim de Miró, Charlotte Perriand, Florence Knoll and Philippe Starck, but also painters like Picasso and Torres-Garcia.
12. What contemporary designers do you appreciate ?
Maybe Joaquim de Miró, Nathalie du Pasquier and Matthew Sullivan.
13. What contemporary artists (in any kind of art) have you been inspired by ?
A lot of them. Picasso, Mondrian, Torres-Garcia, Modigliani, Joaquim de Miró, Salvador Dalí… Also John Lennon, Akira Kurosawa, Hergé…Serge Gainsbourg
14. If you had to summarize your creations in one word or sentence, what would it be ?
BRUTALIST LINE ART
A piece of art, whatever it is, is the product of the moment and also of the circumstances, even the artist needs a number of years to carry it out, as in the case of Michelangelo.
15. Is there anything you would like to add?
Well, I just like to thank you all for your attention.
Proust Questionnaire with very short answers (one or a few words) :
(The Proust Questionnaire is a set of questions answered by the French writer Marcel Proust. Other historical figures who have answered confession albums are Oscar Wilde, Karl Marx, Arthur Conan Doyle, Stéphane Mallarmé, Paul Cézanne…)
1. What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Love
2. What is your greatest fear?
Death
3. What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
Anger
4. What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Anger
5. Which living person do you most admire?
My sister
6. What is your greatest extravagance?
Working nudism
7. What is your current state of mind?
Honesty, I think.
8. What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
Virtuosity
9. What is the quality you most like in a man ?
Funny
10. What is the quality you most like in a woman ?
Funny also
11. Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
I don’t know
12. Which talent would you most like to have?
To fly
13. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
To be a little less anxious
14. What do you consider your greatest achievement?
To work in what I love
15. If you were to die and come back as a person or a thing, what would it be?
Probably a bird
16. Where would you most like to live?
Bali, where I actually live
17. What is your most treasured possession?
Sorry, it’s a secret amulet
18. What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
Alcohol
19. What is your favorite occupation?
To do what you want whenever you want
20. What is your most marked characteristic?
Be a little impatient
21. What do you most value in your friends?
Understanding
22. Who are your favorite writers?
John Kennedy Toole, Elif Shafak and Georges Simenon
23. Who is your hero of fiction?
Tintin
24. Which historical figure do you most identify with?
Maybe Napoleon
25. Who are your heroes in real life?
Ordinary people, like my sister
26. What are your favorite names?
Iris, Susan and Charles
27. What is it that you most dislike?
Hipocrisy
28. What is your greatest regret?
Answer to this questionnaire (just kidding). I have a lot to regret.
29. How would you like to die?
Suddenly, without much suffering
30. What is your motto?
Live your life honestly and enjoy it