Chemin faisant, les grolles

Chemin faisant begins as a practice. Walking, observing, remaining available. A large part of my work is born from walking, without any immediate pictorial intention. I walk, I watch the bodies I encounter, their way of standing, of waiting, of moving through space. These human postures become sketches, quick notations captured on the spot. They form a silent reserve from which the work is built.

The paintings come afterwards. They extend these sketches without seeking to reproduce a specific scene. What matters to me is the attitude, the relationship between the body and space, the ordinary presence of a human being within an environment. Painting does not tell what happened. It holds what was seen.

The grolles then appear as an essential detail. An infinitesimal part of the itinerary. What touches the ground first. What commits the body to walking and makes encounter possible. They are the point of contact between the human being and the world, between the observed posture and the painting to come.

The Chemin faisant series does not speak of movement as a narrative. It is interested in what makes movement possible. In each painting, the anecdote is reduced. A pair of shoes. A pause. A moment of suspension. But behind this fragment lies the path taken, the bodies encountered, the accumulated sketches, the gaze trained over time.

The grolles are not the central subject. They are a threshold. They mark the entry into the work. They remind us that painting often begins with a walk, a look, a posture briefly glimpsed and then held.