As far back as I can remember, I have always drawn, sculpted, and, to tell the truth, created. I was lucky enough to travel—a lot—all over the world, even when I was little. It opened my eyes, sharpened my mind, and stimulated my imagination. I absorbed everything without filter—that is the power of childhood. It nourished me much more than the bibliothèque nationale!
At school, I filled my notebooks with drawings. Lessons were never as good as when they had to be illustrated. I still remember the Seyès stripes that I covered with sketches.
Between the ages of 10 and 15, I was eager to learn different graphic art techniques—from charcoal to oil to Indian ink.
At 16, I discovered my true mode of expression: photography. As a teenager, I felt time speeding up. I appreciated the immediacy of the "snapshot," creating by pressing the shutter—first on a Leica IIIG, then on a Nikon F2, two legendary cameras my father passed down to me. Like a sculptor uncovering pre-existing forms in stone, I revealed beauty hidden in the banal. I captured and froze, within the frame I chose, a rectangle of life in the "here and now."
I think of Gainsbourg's song: “The hidden beauty of the ugly.” It’s this beauty I strive to uncover, extracting it from the everyday. Through framing, shapes, and colors, I reveal what the passerby ignores: that in all things, there is beauty and goodness. Beyond the form, I seek the essence of beings. I lift the curtain of appearance—often deceptive—to expose my truth.
As a child, I visited Egypt and brought back the principle of purification, inspired by the minimalism of pharaonic architecture: colossal, raw, and essential. Much later, from New York to the Grand Erg Oriental of the Sahara, I tracked down emotions. I unearthed them where there seemed to be only glass curtains, stones, and dust. Thus, my photographs—flirting with painting, collage, and abstraction—evoke a sense of confusion. Yet, the human presence is never far away.
It may be worth noting that none of my photos, particularly those in my “urban reflections” series, are the result of composition, assembly, or double exposure. These images are captured as they are—raw, in the nature of cities.
My influences? Warhol, with his bold colors; the rigor and rhythm of Lichtenstein; the compressions of César; and Klimt, whose descriptive abstraction and deliberate pace I admire. Klimt’s works demand time to uncover the hidden humanity melted into the scrolls of his paintings—a concept I strive to mirror.
To make something sensitive, moving, and aesthetic from the banal and everyday reality—to pay homage to nature and humanity, who ask for nothing more than to be embraced, to have their wedding celebrated and their dialogue praised—that is what I am showing you.