How and why to become a painter?

How and why to become a painter?

As far back as I can remember, I have always drawn, painted, created…

When I was only 4 years old

From the face of that little girl my own age, when I was only 4 years old, whose huge green eyes I used to make up in the school playground with those greasy sticks used for carnival, to the first female nudes sketched on the backs of rolls of wallpaper from our house renovation in Pignan, in the Hérault – drawings I sketched with my mother's make-up, giving these creations such a feminine texture and scent.

I was born with this urge to paint, this need to draw, to immortalise what presented itself to my eyes or my mind.
I don't think that one «becomes» a painter or a musician, or that one embraces any form of art; I believe that one is born an artist.
Even though sometimes it takes us time to discover it, I managed to listen to my Heart very early on, and I began early to admire these landscapes, these faces, these bodies, and to draw inspiration from them.
I thus became aware of the incredible luck we have to be born, to exist, and to have received the most beautiful of gifts: a body—whatever it may be, eyes to see and admire, a brain to analyse, interpret and transcribe the visions of the soul, a heart to enjoy all of this, and hands to create all these works.
Thank you, life.

Art is in my eyes and in my heart

Even though I have been creating my art for more than 45 years, I am far from always having been able to make a living from it, and it is only 10 years ago that I decided to make it my sole «profession»... even though the term «profession» still feels inaccurate to me, so much is art, in my eyes and in my heart, more of a vocation, a passion that burns within me and nourishes my spirit every day.
If I have painted all these years, it was to fill my soul but also to learn, to improve my technique, because being entirely self-taught, I have never taken a single drawing or painting lesson, nor even been advised in the matter.

Around the age of 12, I asked my parents for an easel for Christmas, as well as canvas boards and oil paint, because I had read that the old masters painted in oils… I wanted to learn, I wanted to understand.
While my friends were playing games suitable for our age, I would head off to my scrubland, that haven of peace very close to our childhood home where I often took refuge, alone.

I used to borrow all the art books I could find from the secondary school library. I would devour them for hours, sitting right there at the foot of the large oak tree, amidst the chirping of the cicadas.

Rembrandt, de La Tour, Van Gogh and Vermeer were my best friends then.

I kept wondering: but how do they do it? What is this genius, this light within them?

I used to reproduce the paintings of famous artists in charcoal in my sketchbook, or sometimes in oils on my canvas boards.

I was discovering the magic of life, of anatomy, portraits, and the power of light, that almost divine light.

Each new work was a miracle to my child's eyes. But who were these masters? Demigods, aliens? My brain didn't understand, I was interested in their lives, more specifically that of Vincent Van Gogh, whose self-portraits troubled me, I wanted to know who was hiding behind those colours, behind that warm yellow which had become my favourite colour and which never left me. At my young age I didn't understand everything about the tormented life that was his, but I wondered: is that what it's like to be a painter? Do you have to create your whole life in poverty, in suffering and in madness? These thoughts gave me an immense feeling of sadness.

How to paint life with that same force, that energy as if every cell, every atom within ourselves vibrated solely for art? I felt such a flame inside me, but was it meant to consume me, to gnaw at my being? I sometimes spoke to Vincent while painting, asking him questions:

«How would you have painted this portrait? Give me some advice...».

«Look Vincent, at this light in my scrubland, listen to its wind, its cicadas, hear its colours whispering in the ear of my brushes.«

«You paint fast, Vincent, very fast, you want to capture the present moment like a camera would, tell me about it...»

I then learn to draw and paint quickly, faster and faster. I do not want to create through analysis, with ego, no, I want to learn to paint with my soul, in a single stroke, without thinking, spontaneously. To ink, to etch into the very depths of my consciousness all these things so that they never disappear, for when my earthly body dies, I know it, my soul will remain that of an artist, for eternity.

I paint, and so I progress until I am 16 years old

I paint, and so I continue until I am 16, my technique takes shape, I don't really have a personal style yet the gesture is there. I show my work for the first time to people other than my family and close friends, to the elderly couple who run the shop in the Beaux-Arts district, where I regularly bought my supplies.

I show them an oil portrait of Julius Caesar painted in a chiaroscuro technique (the work can still be seen in Pignan town hall today): they can't get over it, and don't believe that I painted it. I then show them photographs of the rest of my work in the same vein.

They tell me about an annual exhibition in Montpellier organised by «Arts et Lettres de France», but at that point I had never exhibited my work... I accept even though I'm not really interested, as I don't paint for that. But their eyes shine so brightly at the sight of my works, my parents are so proud that I accept... That day, I win the gold medal for national young hope.

My mother is ecstatic... and I couldn't care less. Besides, it will be the one and only «competition» I'll ever take part in, because to my mind art is anything but a contest.

I continue to move forward alone, women fascinate me more and more, I photograph them, paint them continually, they become my main source of inspiration to the point of wanting to be one of them.

I don't like the «avatar» (that name I give to our body, to our ego) that I have in this life, this body that was imposed on me, which I find unappealing because of its small size.

It would be so lovely to be able to have the choice of this «avatar» before being born!

That is why I paint these women, beyond paying tribute to the female beauties that life gives me the joy and the chance to cross paths with, I paint this WOMAN who is within me, I want to create the self-portrait of my soul.

Even though they say the soul has no gender, mine is bound to be feminine.

In 1996 I deconstruct this woman in a colourful style that I call «Courbisme» (Curvism), in a nod to the Cubism of Picasso, another of my masters. I accentuate and distort this imaginary self-portrait to the point of revealing a woman with huge, bright eyes (resembling that four-year-old girl I used to put makeup on in the school playground), endowed with a full mouth, fleshy like an overripe fruit. The body curves that inspired the word «Courbisme» are traced onto the canvas in a harmonious ballet of lines and colours; they are life, and become the body I imagine for myself.

I created works in this same vein until 2002, and I exhibited them in 1998 in a New York gallery, a city full of energy where I lived for 6 months.

But this style, although highly polished and very personal, does not allow me to get by financially.

I then speak to Vincent: «What should I do? Where should I go? Guide my steps, light the way on the web!»

A voice echoes in my head, telling me to listen to my heart: «go where no one has been, be unique, be a trailblazer, as I have been».

I then practise lots of different techniques: watercolour, acrylic, pastel, Indian ink, spray paint, dripping, collage, digital painting… and many other daily experiments in my new studio which I call LEA – an acronym for Laboratoire d’Expériences Artistiques (Laboratory of Artistic Experiments).

It was in 2012 that I had an idea:

«and what if I mixed this other art that I practise alongside painting, photography, with the colourful paint of my Le Corbusianism ... But how should I go about it? I then discover that other master, Andy Warhol, who coloured photographs of celebrities using a technique all of his own: his famous »POP ART«.

I like it, but how can I draw inspiration from it in 2012 using the modern techniques available to me? I am painting a digital portrait of David Bowie using a software program called Corel Painter, which magically gives me a whole palette of tools and brushes, as well as textures, colours... In this way, I rediscover in a «virtual» form everything I had experimented with in my various explorations.

I feel such joy, such happiness that my heart is in a frenzy: «look Vincent, I'm painting fast, very fast... your soul inhabits my body, my arm, I am in a trance...»

I'm printing this black and white portrait of David Bowie on canvas, but I feel it lacks life, texture, relief… Courbism colour accidentally intersects (even though I deny it's an accident) with the B&W canvas; the heavily diluted acrylic reveals the shadows and highlights at the same time as the printed canvas.

That's fantastic, so I'm rediscovering Andy's POP ART technique, good grief, what on earth have I discovered in LEA? I am refining this technique, incorporating my «scribbleism», another of my techniques which consists of drawing a subject with continuous lines that intersect and multiply, using a black pen. I then add a bit of dripping (a technique learned by studying the famous American artist Jackson Pollock) and it is with this first painting that the style I call «NEW POP» is born.

He quickly finds his community via social media.

And I can't help thinking of you Vincent... what would your destiny have been if you had been able to share your art, your talent with the world using Facebook or Instagram? Things would have been different and you surely wouldn't have been the Vincent we know, so thank you for what you brought us, it's a divine gift, you changed the lives of certain people, including mine, just as Christ, Gandhi, Mandela, Mozart, Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa could have...»

The further I advanced in NEW POP, the more the world opened up to me: I had the immense privilege of meeting wonderful people, beautiful souls, whether famous or not, and of creating works that are close to my heart. Who would have thought that one day I would be approached by Dieter Wiesner, who was Michael Jackson's manager from 1996 until his death? A call that would lead to the creation of 7 works on Michael for a wonderful project, while Dieter agreed to write the foreword to my new book « NEW POP 10th anniversary »with words that always make me cry, every time I read them. Who could have believed that my work would be projected onto the Burj Khalifa in Dubai or Times Square in New York, my very own work, the little lad from the Pignan scrubland?

Life offers us its share of surprises and miracles; anything is possible, for better as well as for worse, unfortunately.

If you want to become a painter, choose to feed the white wolf rather than the black wolf, as the Native American parable explains, and beautiful things will present themselves to you just as they presented themselves to me.

Many projects still drive me today, such as writing and directing an autobiographical, dreamlike film that I have been working on for many years (and whose title will be « In the shade of the colours »), but I also want to dedicate myself to other art forms, such as sculpture which I've been practising for a few years, or fashion design by creating my own eco-friendly brand, as protecting the planet is a subject that is particularly close to my heart.

To conclude and answer the title of this article, «How and why to become a painter», I would say that it is simply a matter of wanting it, of believing in it fully, of dedicating one's life, time and soul to it come what may, despite the difficult periods of poverty that may occur, the doubts or the sufferings... Nothing, nothing is stronger than the joy that creation brings, for at that moment one feels like the divine painting life within the darkness of nothingness.

If you love this art, truly live it, and you will vibrate through this unique experience.