RESEARCH
Between Two Worlds:
Forms, Experiences, and Structures of Passage
My research lies at the intersection of visual arts, philosophy, architecture, and anthropology.
It builds on an artistic practice developed over more than twenty years, exploring fragmentation, memory, perception, and the transformation of forms.
Through drawing, painting, sculpture, and digital environments, I am interested in how we construct our relationship with the world, how our experiences transform the way we see it, and how certain forms persist despite displacement and change.
This research is rooted in my experience of exile, but gradually moves beyond the autobiographical to address a broader question: how do we move through a space, a culture, a memory, or an identity without emerging entirely unscathed, yet never remaining quite the same?
PASSAGE
A Dynamic Process of Transformation
Passage lies at the heart of my research. It refers not only to moving from one place to another, but also to the transformations that accompany any experience of transition. Leaving a country, learning a new language, growing up, losing someone, or changing the way we see the world are all experiences that raise questions about the relationship between continuity and rupture. These passages do not necessarily lead to a definitive state. They may allow different temporalities, multiple senses of belonging, and different ways of perceiving the world to coexist. I seek to understand how artistic forms can accommodate these experiences and make perceptible the tensions between what remains, what disappears, and what transforms.
THE CORNER (LE COIN)
The "Degré zéro" of Architecture
For nearly fifteen years, the Corner has been a recurring structure in my paintings.
Formed by the meeting of two walls, without a floor or ceiling, it creates a deliberately incomplete architecture. It defines a space while leaving open the possibility of extending it in the mind. For me, the Corner is a paradoxical space: the body is brought to a halt, while the imagination is free to project itself beyond its boundaries. Characters, objects, memories, and references to art history coexist within it, sometimes belonging to different places and periods.
In my research, the Corner becomes a framework for exploring the relationships between lived, represented, and imagined space. It raises a central question: how can a spatial boundary become a condition for transforming the way we see the world?
ESCAPE — Mixed media on canvas / 145 x 200 cm / 2015
FROM FRAGMENT TO FORM
Deconstructing, Reassembling, Transforming.
The fragment plays a fundamental role in my work. It first appeared in my drawings, composed of small graphic units, and later developed in my paintings through the Cube, an elementary form that allows me to construct and deconstruct figures, objects, and architectures. Each unit exists independently, yet can also become part of a larger whole. This structure allows forms to transform without necessarily disappearing. A figure can become an object, a body can extend into an architecture, or an image can gradually lose its recognisability. I am interested in the fragment as a way of exploring the relationships between part and whole, permanence and metamorphosis. How does a form remain recognisable as it transforms? And at what point does it cease to be what we thought we were seeing?
Left: FRAGMENTED DRAWING — Mixed painting on paper / 21 × 30 cm / 2015
Centre: GENEALOGY — Mixed painting on canvas / 160 × 130 cm / 2022
Right: THE PALETTE — Painted wood / 16 × 16 × 44 cm / 2024
A GENEALOGY OF PERCEPTION
How is the way we see the world shaped?
We never look at the world independently of our experiences. Our perception is shaped by learning, memory, the images we encounter, our bodily habits, and the environments in which we live. Through my drawing workshops, I have observed that people working within the same framework can produce very different graphic compositions. Some repeat forms, while others favour symmetry, dispersion, or relationships between different elements. These observations have led me to question the origins of the ways we organise space. I call this inquiry into the formation and transformation of our perceptual habits a “genealogy of perception”. Drawing particularly on phenomenology, I seek to examine how lived experience shapes the way we see the world, and how artistic practice can make some of these perceptual processes visible.
Left: PAUL KLEE, TIGHTROPE WALKER — Lithograph / 52 × 38 cm / Bequest of Nina Kandinsky, 1981
Centre: PAUL KLEE AND HIS TIGHTROPE WALKER — Mixed painting on canvas / 160 × 130 cm / 2025
Right: Attributed to DAN.H, THE TIGHTROPE WALKER ON FIRE — Mixed painting on canvas / 35 × 45 cm / 2026
A PHENOMENOLOGY OF PERSISTANCE
How does what is no longer present continue to make itself felt?
Memory does not preserve experiences in an unchanging form. It transforms and reorganises them, sometimes allowing them to resurface in unexpected circumstances. This question has been present in my work from the very beginning. Exile confronted me at an early age with the persistence of places that had become inaccessible. More broadly, the disappearance of a person, a place, or a way of life raises questions about what continues to exist through the traces left behind. A photograph, an object, a story, or a gesture can prolong a presence while reminding us of its absence. I am interested in this relationship between disappearance and persistence, as well as the transformations brought about by the ways we preserve and transmit memories. From this perspective, memory is not simply something to be preserved, but an ongoing activity that continually transforms our relationship with the present.
SOULÈVEMENT — Mixed painting on canvas / 140 x 200 cm / 2015
DAN.H — FROM CREATURE TO CREATOR
Inventing A Way of Seeing
DAN.H is a fictional character born within my paintings. Constructed from elementary forms, he has neither a fixed anatomy nor a definitive identity. His body constantly transforms, fragments, and reassembles itself. Gradually, DAN.H gains a fictional autonomy and becomes an artist in his own right. He begins to create his own images, developing a visual language distinct from mine. His representations abandon the depth and complexity of his body in favour of simplified signs. This reversal particularly interests me: a creature imagined by an artist becomes a creator of images himself. Through DAN.H, I explore the relationships between representation and perception, identity and transformation, but also between creator and creature. Is it possible to invent a way of seeing different from our own? And how might such an attempt transform the way we ourselves see the world?
DAN.H & Guernica — Mixed painting on canvas / 2 x 3 m / 2026
THE EPISTEMIC DOUBLE
Between the Lived Body and the Represented Body
I am currently developing an experimental project that combines drawing with the recording of certain physiological variations. Using a drawing tablet and an electrodermal activity sensor, it would be possible to record a person’s gestures, pauses, and movements as they create a drawing. This data would be used to generate a second representation, which I call the “epistemic double”. Rather than seeking to uncover a hidden meaning within the drawing or automatically identify the artist’s emotions, this double would offer another way of observing the creative process by bringing together the forms produced, the recorded bodily variations, and the person’s own account of their experience. This experiment also raises questions about the nature of digital traces. What happens to a lived experience when it is transformed into data? What can be preserved, and what is lost in the process? The epistemic double would thus become a research tool for exploring the relationships between perception, memory, the body, and representation.
Three paintings attributed to DAN.H:
Left: Ref. 1809 — Mixed painting on canvas / 35 × 45 cm / 2026
Centre: Ref. 6037 — Mixed painting on canvas / 35 × 45 cm / 2026
Right: Ref. 8045 — Mixed painting on canvas / 35 × 45 cm / 2026