ARTIST STATEMENT
I paint full bodies, singles figures, limbs entwined and merely shapes. I paint
as the French say, "corps à corps", "body to body". My body, the body of work,
and the bodies of each viewing participant merge in sensuality, confrontation,
and violence. Every move of my fingers stands dynamically frozen in time -a
fingerprint on painted bodies, caresses that give each painting its story. My
bodies are larger than life. With deep eyes and finger-marked skin, they stare
back, inquiring.
My medium is anything that is available. I do not like to limit myself to
specific materials, and I do not hold prejudices against or have preferences for
any given medium. I use everything, I mix and invent new materials because the
medium is part of the painting and its creative process.
Many artists and writers have influenced my work, but most profoundly the French
artist Jean Dubuffet (1901-1985). His beliefs remain true for me today: artists
are still under much pressure to conform, to imitate, and to sell in order to
survive. Alone in my studio, when creating and painting, I work to express
myself without any interference from outside. I do not like anything to get in
between the canvas and me. I want the observer to feel the distance from society
and 'reality' that was crucial in conceiving the painting.
I strive to paint the body hidden beneath the skin. A body not yet able to
speak. I paint words that others do not dare to speak. My work is simple,
colorful, playful and accessible, and engages the senses. Yet my paintings are
confrontational. They look at you and oblige the viewer to look and feel. They
are reminders of life, of feeling and of being alive. My paintings speak for
themselves in a language they invent; for this reason, I do not use titles. They
are, as we are, in these times of endings and beginnings witnesses to and
evidence of our time.
(Series of paintings made from 2004 - present). These paintings are inspired by
my experience as both insider and outsider in the United States. Having grown up
in France with my mother, I came to the United States as an adult to get to know
my African-American father and family, and I became conscious of what it means
to be "black" in a new way. Coming from a country where métissage (being of
mixed heritage) has concrete meaning - where you are neither black nor white,
yet both, where you are allowed to embody both your father and mother's skin, I
was paralyzed by American definitions. I understood that you did not choose who
you were here. These paintings respond, insisting on choice: my color(s) are
those beneath my skin, waiting simply to be seen, to be recognized but not
feared.
My series of geometrical word paintings tell the story of my introduction to
race in the United States, entering as part of the African diaspora: they bare
what is in front of our eyes, what many of us know, but are afraid to see. They
are like billboards, purposefully composed with the vivid, fluorescent paint of
road signs to ensure that we face these public secrets. I paint words in relief
so that they can be read even by touching, to better allow recognition of words
that are difficult to speak. They expose the statistical truths that make up our
daily realities; so in each painting, I speak back to these numbers to ask why
-- must it be this way? Framed as windows onto a different reality, I want
viewers to feel the distance from society that was crucial in conceiving of the
painting, even as I want them to face this reality.
The series of geometrical portraits continue this exploration of what is beneath
and beyond race. Influenced both by my experience in the United States, and by
my years spent in Africa, I play with the trope of masks, but here, they reveal
not what covers the face, but what is hidden under the skin. With all the colors
that are not black and white, I paint faces not yet able to speak. These are the
people waiting to become, yet they are also all of us as we already are, in our
irreducible difference and refracted color. I use my fingers to paint their
backgrounds, creating a safe space for them to appear as they genuinely are,
both as individuals and in groups. I use colored pencils for the faces, relying
on their simplicity and playfulness to engage the senses. With deep and
provocative eyes, in finger-marked landscapes, they stare back, inquiring. As
with the word paintings, they command the viewer to see them without guilt,
shame or denial; to recognize their unique beauty.