My art is very autobiographical, I recognise a lot of myself in my paintings and parts of my life actually.
L'amour Fou is a reference to a book from Andre Breton, the founder of surrealism, it talks a lot of love. I understand the paintings are quite vivid in colour, harsh and grotesque. There is a brutality and animality coming from them.
I have no plan when I paint. I start with some random shapes and collage to start with faces and representation. most of it ends with nothing that it started with. When I paint it is a non territory.
Grotesque is a word I use often to describe my painting. Grotesque also implies something funny on top of being catchy, it applies well to my work.
When we meet we love each other, we tear each other apart, we fight, we start again
It is supposed to just make people think and envisage and approach things from a different angle. I am still trying to understand myself what art means and what being an artist means. I try to refrain from calling myself an artist because I don't know exactly what it means and I don't need the pressure of that.
Art is the only couture product that is not influenced by masses of people. You know we buy millions of records, thousands of people attend a show, we all watch the same movies and series and we have an influence on what is sold to us. But art is less influenced by us and more influenced by the artist. Artists reference themselves or each other but art needs to be unique, it needs to come from the soul in the end.
"I struggle to call myself an artists"
"What term do you prefer"
"My name is Cyrille"
My father is an architect and furniture designer, his artistry influenced me to want to be a photographer. I started making montage photography by making collages of small prints of scenes on the streets of paris. I tried my hand at a filmmaker but it didn't last very long so then I went to study art at the university or Paris and University of Quebec. I was studying from an intellectual and academic point of view, I was not learning how to paint. I moved to New York and worked as a gallery assistant in Soho to Ingbar who specialises in architectural representation of New York City.
I started my professional career in software and ever since I have had two lives, one to get you working and composed and stable, talking to people who believe they are smart and the other one is more about freedom. Maintaining the two is not sustainable in the long run.
Eight years ago I started taking art classes from Ricky Burnett in Rosebank and he taught me the right thing, he taught me what I needed to know. He created a platform for me start and I have never stopped painting since. I have always painted for myself though I have never painted with the idea of showing my work or sharing it with other people. I was encouraged by the feedback of friends to reach out to the gallery.
I have had a fascination with African since the age of 17 and have since lived in Sengela, Nigeria and South Africa. Even when living in Montreal and New York it will always be with the idea of moving to africa. African art has definitely informed my work. Although I hope to be unique there is clearly a neo-expressionist touch. In a practical sense South Africa gave me the space and the time to create art. After living in a big capital city like Paris or New York it is more difficult. Here I have the time and freedom and access to great teachers. This created the platform for me to express myself through painting.
I was going to say I enjoy it but I don't as well. It is very hard to paint. When I start to paint I know that I don't really know how to paint, I don't know where I am going. I know that there is a certain degree of violence that I meet. It is emotionally draining. It is very scary to paint.
I can take a long time to make a painting but I paint fast. It is almost like a spasm, to almost punch the canvas. I rush to colour to the extent that I often take the wrong one and if I take the wrong one I continue with it.
Every time I finish a painting and I look at it and I think "How have I done that? Will I be able to do it again?" I know that I don't know how to paint that but I did it and when you look at the series the proof is that I do it again.
When I complete a work I am relieved but also panicked because I don't know if i will be able to do it again.
Maybe the day I will be able to paint a bird flying over a lake at sunset I will be at peace.
A title is something that you give in the moment. It takes me a long time to process a title like it takes me a long time to process a painting.
