About

Artist Statement

I sculpt what I would have liked to have seen in my youth.

The beauty of male love.  His strength, his tenderness. Couples of young men, a tender gesture, the sweetness and charm of a face, a gesture of love - or sometimes more teasing.

And also the expression of desire through the body: the neck line, the power of a muscular back, a chiseled torso. Eroticism sometimes suggested. This masculine tenderness has been expressed very well by the artist Steve Walker.

I try to express this sensuality in 3 dimensions, with a focus on couples. My sculptures are made of stone, clay and bronze, and born of a memory, a pose seen, a sketch. Sometimes I invoke mythology, as with Icarus, or a more abstract or symbolic thought, as the hand with a cube. My intention is to suggest or recall an emotion, a lived moment. And to bring some beauty in this world.

About the artist

My family includes a few artists, and my paternal grandfather was close to committed and 'open minded' writers and artists. I had a silent admiration for these and other artists, the way they lived their lives, the solitude and quietness of their research, their work, observed during studio visits and exhibitions.

As a young gay man, pursuing my classical studies, and travelling to Italy, Greece and Egypt, I developed a keen appreciation  for the male beauty of the marble and bronze statues of the ancient masters. I also love the sober lines of Henry Moore and George Minne. But I have always felt strongly the absence of gay couples in sculpture.

In recent years, I worked in the nonprofit field of LGBT rights, one of the most exciting pursuits of my life.

Today, I am able to divide my time between managing a tropical paradise of an inn created with my partner, and my sculpture studio a few steps away. In beautiful St Martin, it is natural that my boys and couples in stone, bronze and clay will arise from there !

Art education

Originally self-taught, I had the chance to meet, more than 10 years ago, the great artist Patrick Poivre de la Freta, who re-awakened in me this passion, which had been asleep since I was a teenager. He encouraged me and followed my work for several years, until his sudden death. Since then, my mind is on my sculptures every day, and my hands are on the stone, the bronze, the clay every moment I get. I also have had the good fortune to take master classes with Philippe Faraut (USA) for clay portraits, with Sonja Mosick (Germany) and Brune Somogyi (Paris) for stone carving.

Blog

The blog 'Gay Sculpture' I launched in 2013 aims to show a wide selection of male sculptures, both ancient and contemporary, as well as accounts of galleries, artists, exhibitions, museums, and collectors united around the idea of male beauty.