// The fundamental choice of medium //

First of all, there is the fabric, discovering the plasticity and endless possibilities of this basically functional material that clothes, protects, covers.

And an imperious need to compulsively and obsessively cut up and reassemble the material. Abandoned fabrics, bits of cloth, small, large, in good or bad condition, ugly or beautiful, «cast-offs» in any case; and the desire to carry them beyond their external appearance, to create, bring together what has been torn apart.

// Doing //

But to create, before making it whole, one must slit, cut into the support to heal the wound, fill it in with cloth; doing it is clean work, it is meticulous, almost surgical.

// The purpose //

To affront the History of Art, picking out the forms most tried and true and make them my own, become stronger - a way of digesting what exists, of making it a part of myself.

Embracing these hallowed forms is in no way cynical, nor do I criticize them, but playfully reinterpret the incontrovertible.

From these borrowings and respectful thefts my own language is born; but my approach is mainly to work around angst. I have today drawn away from historicized forms (Frank Stella, Bridget Riley, Sonia Delaunay, the decorative Arts...) and want to concentrate especially on organic compositions, ways of making the things we are afraid of attractive (see “La Route de la soie”, “la fusion”...).

A pattern unsettling at first sight will thus be dealt with by applying sweet, tangy colors, or quiet shades of pastel, and round forms will avert the suggested danger.

Larva, what the microscope reveals, skin disease, viscera, malformations of various sorts, or confetti, bonbons, dragons? We’re not obliged to choose.

I have chosen to cultivate the in-between, the play between attraction and repulsion. Fabrics do their part by putting a distance between ourselves and those revolting things that could make one sick.

In another series, I use the forms created by a spirograph (“L'éternel manège”, “Le noyau pneumatique”...). These themes allow me to maintain the ambiguity between, on one side, the agreeable process of drawing that takes me back to my childhood, and on the other side, what finally comes out of it: mathematical curves that ceaselessly unroll, with neither beginning nor end in view.

The irresistible rise of gold and silver on my palette bears witness to my reflection on materialism and on the importance of the image in our society, as well as to the tenuous frontier between seductiveness and vulgarity. Gold and silver also have the fascinating quality of being able to refract light, thus modifying reality.

I paint with fabrics. Using them instead of paint, I accept the formal constraints they impose but also enjoy all the mastery they confer - materials that never stain.

M.T.