What is your background and how does it influence your art?

I was born in the east of France but grew in Paris suburbs and studied art philosophy with a speciality in semantic and semiology at Paris VIII. I then gravitated towards fashion and worked since then closely with fashion creative helping them translate their vision and their worlds into communication systems and immersive events. From fashion show set design to creating the language of a brand there are many ways I apply what I learned along with my personal sensibility to different brands. Meanwhile I have been working on personal art projects over the last two decades, at the crossroads of music and art, with a hint of fashion probably.

Your recent installation, “Withstand the Fall of Time,” titled after Immortal’s immortal piece garnered attention in Palermo, Milan, and Paris. What was the inspiration behind this installation, and what message were you trying to convey?

Withstand the fall of time was conceived in collaboration with my good friend and photographer / director Jordan Hemingway. The installation is taking key elements from our shared sub-cultural background, our eagerness for all things dark from black metal to goth passing by pagan rituals and mediaeval history.
The pendulum of Foucault, a nod to Ecco’s historical fiction novel, was a starting point for us, where science becomes magic and how the relentless movement of time is here right in front of our eyes. With a pendulum of chain hoisted above an ‘improved’ Warlock guitar, the chain grazes the cords at each passage of time, creating a dark yet enveloping sound. One dear friend attended the Paris event that took place at 35/37 thanks to Adrian Joffe from Comme Des Garçons, dubbed it ‘black metal zen’ and it is like the glove that fits. The foreboding movement of the encen’s burner in the centre of the church or the frightening cut throat blade moving back and forth over poor adventurers in grave robber films are also elements taken in consideration when we were thinking the process of these pieces. The guitar pendulum surrounded by a circle of speakers, reminiscing Celtic raised stones added an extra ritual approach to the process, the back and forth, the hypnotising sound, the pagan surrounding are different activation of ritual of creed.

What role does symbolism and rituals play in your approach?

It’s very present, in an overwhelming way, I see rituals as celebration of the symbols, some others call it prayer time I guess. Losing yourself in a repetitive movement, into a repetition of words are key themes in religious celebrations, from pagan to magic, from different organised systems of belief, its a path to go beyond, into something that is ultimately bigger than you, into the void hopefully.

In your opinion, how do subcultures, like the goth, impact mainstream culture and influence artistic expression today compared to the past?

I think goth and other subcultures have always impacted their surroundings, they are like small streams, packed with signs and symbols, permeating into the main river of our cultural landscapes, into our consciousness even. It happened before and it will happen again. Maybe the impact is now less easy to spot as clearly as it was before but doesn’t every new generation say the same thing? Maybe it has more to do with the speed of information, the faster it goes the less we can spot the details that might have been way more obvious in the 80s and then in the 2000s. Whoever proclaims the death of subculture only asserts his blindness to their new forms.