Dancing and painting since the age of 7, I describe myself as an “Artiste Vivante”, since my work combines both painting and performance. Two questions obsess me:
1) How can I be outside who I am inside?
2) Who am I inside?
Those questions lead me to explore the portrait, focusing on the organ that forms the boundary between the inside and the outside of the body: the skin.
In 2009, I discovered the book “Women who run with the wolves”. Clarissa Pinkola-Estes reveals that inside each woman there is an inner “Wolf”: the older, wiser, wilder woman who is guiding each of us. This book was a trigger for what has become a 2 year long project still in development.
I first met my wild woman through a self-portrait called “Femme Sauvage”. She is now with me whenever I paint or perform whether I make self-portraits or portraits of other people. This is how the “Wolf series” started, portraits looking for the wolf inside people, now developing into “Clown portraits”. I ask people to apply make up on their own face and show their inner clown (another aspect of their creativity). The clown can take any shape from a red nose to mountains painted on the cheeks. It is a way to show outside, on the skin, what is inside, under the skin. The process is similar to the wolf series: I am painting their portrait focusing on the colors on the skin, but this time it is the model who chooses their own colors and patterns.
The “Wolf Perfomance” during which I make the “Wolf portrait” of one member of an audience, is a way to offer the encounter with the wolf to a wider range of people. The process is supported by live music (saxophone, drum and thumb piano).
I’ve made four “Wolf Performance” so far:
“Totem of Reunification”, Tottenham Euroart Studio, 2009 (where I made the portrait of each member of the audience)
“The Message of the Wolf”, White Cube, Bristol, 2010 (where I painted people’s wildest dreams for their life.)
“The Message of the Earth”, Crypt Gallery, London, 2010 (where I painted the portrait of one member of the audience.)
“The Conquest of the Hearts”
“Creative Instinct”, Camden’s People Theatre, London, 2012 will be an opportunity for one member of the audience to paint directly on their own face the image of their “Wolf” and for me to make their portrait so they can SEE it.
