1. Where were you born and where are you from ?

I was born near Paris. I grew up in Provence, in the south of France, near the nature.

2. What is your first memory connected to the art world ?

Perhaps the caves I visited when I was 12 doing speleology.
The silence, the water drops sound and the beauty of this water sculpted landscape.

3. Have you always worked in the art/design field ?

For a long time, I worked in parallel with my art work : window cleaner on rope, theatre grip in paris and sciences teacher. In addition with the money necessity, I liked the differents universes I discovered with each job.

4. What led you to the design creation ?

After completed my sciences studies, I had to go in Cech Republic for my civil service. Feeling alone and unable to communicate with people because of langage gap, I started making sculptures with various materials. Back to France, I decided that I wanted to be sculptor (and I didn’t know it was going to be a whole life road!). My parents tought I was completly crazy!

5. How would you describe your creative process and it influences ?

As lot of children, I was very curious about natural phenomena, which leeds me to study geophysics. After a while, I was unsatisfied by the science rational approach. Instead I was drawn by the intiutive way of sensibility. I finaly skip the laboratory work for the art studio session. However, the interrogations about nature and the universe remain the spine of my work.
The start of a new piece is a drawing (or several drawings). For me the difficulty is to find the right state where spontaneity is able to express, so that the piece will not be not prisonner from the drawing.
Archie Shepp used to say he spent all his life trying to refind the first «bad sounds» he made when beginning saxophone. I am running after this state of beginner spontaneity.

6. Could you describe a typical day of your work ?

I start a day work with some gymnastics and meditation exercises. A solid breakfast and then I spend some «computer-time», answering the last ygael emails. Then I go to my studio on the other side of the house. Sometime I go in the forest around to look for a new piece of wood. After lunch, a creative nap to think about the work in progress (the thinking reachs its summit when snoring appears) and back to studio. The creative work, which often consist in drawing, occurs in informel moments, drinking a coffe anywhere but not in the studio.

7. Why did you choose the specific materials you work with ?

I started working with stone, then metal and finaly wood. The wood as its own shape which brings a random shape into my work. So the final result is the meeting between my intention and the wood intention. I like that at one moment, the piece escapes from me to affirm its own life.

8. What are the technical particularities of your creations ?

I am not a great wood technician. It often leeds me to «invent» wood joining technique which present an aesthetic interest. The technique is part of the piece. I like the people who see the piece to understand how it has been made. I don’t play the wood wizard! If I sew wood, then the sewing will be visible as part of the piece. The only thing I want to hide is the electrical material, because if it is visble, it is no more a sculpture but a lamp.

9. What advices could you give to beginning artists who would like to create sculptural design works ?

The art road is more a long distance run than a sprint. Keep energy for tomorow!

10. If your works had to belong to a design movement, in which one would you define it ?

11. What designers have influenced you ?

12. What contemporary designers do you appreciate ?

Thierry Martenon, Ernst Gamperl

13. What contemporary artists (in any kind of art) have you been inspired by ?

David Nash, Martin Puryear

14. If you had to summarize your creations in one word or sentence, what would it be ?

Looking for balance

15. Is there anything you would like to add ?

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…)