I come from the heart of Europe, the flat country of flanders, Belgium.  A country of political division and of shared ideas and dreams, especially among the artists.  Land of Heronimus Bosch, Rembrandt and Rubens, expressionism and surealism.  And of contemporary artists like Johan Huyle and Jan Fabre.  At all times Belgian artists looked beyond their frontiers.

In 1994 I chose to live in the Midi area of France, in the Cevennes mountains, in a hamlet at the far end of a valley, in a “voie sans issue.” - dead end road.  I didn’t know what I was looking for, nor what I would find, nor if I would stay. This is a land of natural sources, wild growth, and of brutal beauty which are all manifest in my paintings.  I like the land's contrasts and its solitude, too.

These past few years, I filled my house with my stories and my history.  Painting gives a sense of the steps I take in my life.  During the periods when I cannot work, I feel a burning frustration.  Afterwards, I go back to painting once the images take form.  There are periods when nothing satisfies me and I quickly draw everything that comes to my hand.

Images emerge from my own memory and, as citizen of the world, the collective memory of the world.  Humanity will never stop surprising me.  I feel like a spectator, a voyeur, at the edge.  I take notes, a few words or lines that are often sufficient to inform a new work.

When I get into my studio, I need to discover something.  I know a joy when I start painting.  The brushes which guide me, and the colors which tell me their own story.  A painting grows without repose and I am anxious to see the idea that becomes form, destroying those that don’t satisfy.  I paint to see where I’m going.  It totally escapes me where I will go next.  I paint to better understand what I see.  It is a natural way of being.  If a painting doesn’t inspire life, it doesn’t interest me.

I cannot repeat myself or keep myself to a single theme.  A theme is interesting for a time, but not for years.  Except for the theme of humankind.  The human spirit lives in hope, madness and in the search for happiness.  I may exclude mad people from my life, but not from my paintings.

I love colors, they give me total freedom.  Colors don’t impose anything, as each one of us translates a color our own way, corresponding to our own selves.

A painting is finished once it doesn’t need me anymore to exist.  An artificial life, but a life after all.  Strange, this moment when it seems the painting decides, leaving me in doubt, pushing me into a new creation, another story, another cycle.