Movement and silence

Where does your painting come from and how do you paint?

Painting became a part of my life very early on, even before I understood that it would become a language in its own right. I must have been nine years old when I received my first box of oil paints. I have never stopped painting. I found in it a space where I could explore a sensation, a vibration, something that circulates between forms. All my professions interact with each other, but painting remains the freest, the one where handiwork can arise without constraint, without a ‘briefing’. When I paint, I try to make visible what still eludes me: a suspended light, a presence that seeks to express itself. I paint very quickly. I need this speed to capture the initial energy, the movement that gives the painting its impetus. Then I let the canvas rest. When I come back to it, I resume, I erase, I scratch, I add veils, I open up the material. It is often in these second interventions that the light appears. It is never imposed: it reveals itself. This back and forth between momentum and patience creates a vibration that, for me, is essential.

Do you have any favourite themes?

There isn’t really a theme. I paint the in-between: the moment when a shape is born and disappears almost immediately. Landscapes, silhouettes, traces of the horizon are not subjects but entry points to a sensation. I seek the breath, the passage, the fragile moment when matter and light respond to each other. Emotion often arises there, in that slight tremor that I cannot completely control. I paint to approach this mystery: a presence that offers itself for a moment, then recedes, but leaves its resonance in the air.

How does your painting relate to your work as an interior architect and designer?
For me, painting, interior architecture and design spring from the same source: a way of looking at the world through light, materials and the silent movements that connect them. In a painting, I look for a presence; in a space or an object, I look for exactly the same thing. Only the scale and the audience change — never the intention. With Claire Bétaille, my partner in interior architecture, this shared perspective has become a method. We often capture the same things during our travels and explorations: the vision of a landscape, the memory of a colour that crosses the air. These impressions remain with us like an afterimage. They reappear later in the design of a space, in the organisation of a volume, in the relationship between material and light.

Design extends this work into a more intimate relationship with the object. Through Bruno Moinard Éditions, I am developing a language in which furniture becomes a presence in its own right. The design, proportions, choice of materials and finishes are approached with the same rigour as in painting: capturing the right tension, finding the balance between strength and restraint. Painting teaches me to welcome raw impressions; interior architecture and design teach me to transform them into habitable forms or durable objects, capable of standing the test of time and continuing to resonate. •

Photos: Le sévère, 53 x 37 cm, oil on canvas, 2025 • Muscle, 46 x 33 cm, oil on canvas, 2025 • La danse, 53 × 45 cm, oil on canvas, 2024 • Bruno Moinard © Jacques Pépion • Genou, 55 x 38 cm, oil on canvas, 2025