2024 / LES RÊVES NOIRS

Series of paintings, burnt wood, marble, gold leaf, paint, varnish
Variable dimensions

The series of paintings entitled LES RÊVES NOIRS echoes recent wildfires around the world. Composed of earth resources (marble, burnt wood and gold leaf), the works suggest the passage of time and seasons, and evoke in material and subject the elements of water, earth, sky, snow and fire; they invite us to question both the fragility and regenerative capacity of nature.

The compositions are alternately drawn from the artist’s personal photographs and inspired by iconic landscape painters from the history of art, such as Leon Spilliaert, Nicolas Roerich or the masters of Japanese printmaking. From the flowers commonly known as fire poppies, which germinate only from ashes after forest fires, to the birds that flit among the charred trunks of a winter forest, each painting offers a melancholy yet optimistic vision of the state of our current ecological crisis – a memento mori of the dialectical nature of destruction and rebirth.