Art Nouveau style, (call it also Liberty, Arts & Crafts, Wiener Secession, depending of the country where you are living, but it’s always the same: an abundance of curves, flowers and plants), is a passion for me for more than 25 years now. I have been collecting and studying it seriously but never thought about how I could integrate this specific style into my work. First I didn’t dare for years; maybe I was too respectful and too young.
Then for a few years now, I have let this style mixing with mine, especially the art of the Czech painter Alfons Mucha, whom I consider like a head master.
Difficult not to be tempted to facility and to copy… Lots of artists have done some drawing and illustrations using his style, but, without understanding who he was and why he was going this way in his work. As a freemason, Mucha was a symbolist and each detail is seriously thought and has a signification related to the general meaning of the illustration, symbolic as well.
I have the same operating mode, thinking that every detail should serve the entire work.
You’ll find a symbol galore in all my illustrations, from toads and flowers to jewellery and architecture elements.
The themes I have developed are all related to the human condition and the place of man in the world, but instead of using elegant and slim female figures as Art Nouveau did, I use bold, chunky and hairy guys, showing that it’s possible to give a credible alternative with non-standard characters.
I am not a porn artist, and maybe some will be disappointed with it, some artists are doing that very well,  it is just simply not me.
I deeply think that the power of suggestion is stronger than the revelation.
Some will say that my characters look like me, I just say, as we French say (always related to food): “there’s nothing looking more than the half of a cheese than another half”, clearly: nothing looks like more a bearded guy than another bearded guy!
Since my last exhibition in October 2008 in the city of Orleans, France, I have slowly changed the way I am drawing.
I am now inking the original final drawing instead of using the blue pencil which was like a signature before and I will be back to colouring with traditional techniques this year.
I am also back to painting and the portrait of my partner on canvas is just a demonstration that I can do a more academic work although I am not considering myself as a painter.