I grew up in the Gaume region, in the south of Belgium, where stone paths run through fields and forests. My brother and I were constantly roaming these landscapes, constantly marvelling at the pebbles we picked up and the strangely shaped branches we brought back. Years later, and still today, I'm fascinated by this bucolic environment, its special places, its plant and mineral materials. I consider this region as the roots of my artistic and conceptual reflections, the roots of a desire to understand what binds us to matter.
Starting with photography in 2016, then sculpture and textile artwork since 2022, I'm focusing on a very simple yet vast subject: human beings and nature, man's fascination with rock. A wide range of research subjects that I pursue through a documentary photographic eye, napper of a simple concept: that every human being is linked to stone in one way or another.
So I have started with photographic projects such as:
Beth-el in 2019, a collection of images representing different kind of fascination involving minerals. Beliefs, myths, history, museum and sciences, with some archives. The first lines for my research project.
The World we Dig in 2021, a simple exploration of some quarry in the south part of Belgium, and documenting these beautiful landscapes and the cost of the destruction to see it.
Grejso in 2022, an exploration and documentation of a territory where the tradition of the stone wall still resonates a little in its landscape, in the ruins and old buildings. Still, the shape of this region has been modified by the ground exploitation.
And then with sculpture and textile project:
Le Mur d'Aion in 2022, a wall, a collection of brick-image, representing the idea that a concrete and charmless wall will not endure the time as a traditional stone wall ; that the modernity will fade away more quickly than ramparts and towers.
Chute de mont in 2023, tree imprints of the same rock from Spain, in the Pyrenean mountains. This rock has been in my mind for a year, after a terrible accident involving him and my right feet. If he was taking part of myself, a part of my feet, I have taken a part of him. His image, his soul, his cortex, capture in the deep fiber of the textile, for the memory of this day.
For me, it's no longer just about photography, but about blending the mediums. To document, experiment and create around the eternal return of the human being to the rock, whose which, at times, he alone has the power to define the most intimate expression of his connection.
