Lichtenberg Impressions
As a native Parisian, I was impressed by the gigantism of Berlin and the way the unconditioned vegetation blends into this raw and orderly architecture – an alliance of order and anarchy that surprisingly co-exists perfectly. I was also struck by the bland colours of the facades, the density of the monuments, the opulence of the graffiti, the mass posters and all the exotic tones that presented themselves. On my walks, I collected advertising posters that had fallen to the ground, laminated to panels, and set to work in the large studio of Lichtenberg Studios.
The initial inspiration for my project at Lichtenberg was the ensemble of water lily paintings by Claude Monet because of the immersive nature of this impressionistic 360-degree landscape. I wanted to translate certain colours and contrasts seen on Berlin facades into painting. Afflicted with a sense of foreignness or exoticism that one has when discovering a country, language or other customs, I decided to break away from my painting habits and not paint or draw directly on the support, but to perform transfers by printing freshly applied paint on a sheet first on posters and then on paper again. By successively layering different colours, I obtained the specific nuances of washed-out, dirty and foreign colours, just like notes of a new scale.
With this new working process, the concept of impressionism opens up to me in a new way and in different meanings. To translate an impression (impression) of colours into painting and to do this through prints (impression). I finally connect these different rectangular pieces of modulated surfaces into a horizontal montage / collage – composing an architectural landscape according to the image of my feelings.