In 1975, one of my wife's cousins lent us a studio in Vence, the home of Matisse. All I brought with me was a box of gouache, and I experimented by painting on the local newspaper. Crumpled, folded papers, etc. piled up on the balcony. To save space, I had the idea of cutting them into strips, weaving and gluing them together.

At the same time, as computer technology progressed rapidly, I began to integrate images and then photomontages based on photos I'd taken on my travels, old engravings I'd found at flea markets and auctions, personal drawings and so on.

From the sketchbook of my grandfather, a painter, to the digital camera, I take the same approach: to take notes of my travels and give an account of present-day life using images from the past and/or from the past.

I get attached to the characters and put them on stage. My grandfather reworked his sketches in the studio, whereas I transform my shots on the computer using appropriate software, then retouch them by hand, adding or deleting. The resulting prints are then painted one by one with acrylic paint, then woven (four layers of paper), hollowed out and glued.

In my work, an abstract part consists in making room for chance, thanks to a series of 40 geometric shapes randomly placed on pre-established grids on the backs of the paintings and determining the cutting spaces. By weaving, the paintings intertwine, then by successive hollowing out, the images come back to life as in an archaeological reconstruction that multiplies the initial elements.