Whimsies is a catch-all collection of stories that don’t fit into any of my other series. What makes an artwork a story?
When I was a little kid, my family lived at a remote military base surrounded by woods on one side and the ocean on the other.
My best childhood friends were books, which our home was always filled with. The characters who lived between the pages were as real to me as anyone I knew! Every time when the lights were off for the night, I would either fill in the gaps in what I read during the day, or imagine the ensuing adventures.
It was around the same time that I got into art: I would draw the characters from my stories, cut them out with scissors, and move them around the landscapes and maps that I would create as well.
This fascination with stories has fueled everything I’ve done since.
My art style can be broadly described as magical realism. Visually, I am often inspired by the illustrations in children’s books that got me into painting in the first place: this tends to translate into the use of bright, cheerful colors, and a certain art naïf aspect to my work.
At first glance, many of my paintings are aimed at kids, whether it is your “inner child”, or an actual one. But be warned: most stories have multiple layers to them, and some will only reveal themselves to an adult ;-)
Unstill Life: the acrylics that started it all
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Moptopus (2018)
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Lucky Galago (2017)
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Pangolina (2017)
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The Iguazu Affair (2019)
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Desert Hedgehog (2018)
Paris Climate Accords (2020)
The Watercolor Whimsies (2019)
Sailing the high seas, oil on canvas (2022)
"Sailing the high seas" is a tribute to those facing harassment in the workplace. Initially I had an idea for a painting depicting a lemur operating an airship (a sort of dirigible Nautilus shell, to be precise). I had the image in my head for awhile, but was not sure what the said lemur was up to. Then one night I was reminded of a kooky incident that happened a few years ago: on a former colleague's last day at work, someone set fire to the company's underground parking lot. No one, except for the empty company car, got injured, and the feat was jokingly attributed to the colleague whom we all knew left in a... shall we say, irregular manner.
The Lemur's story is that of fighting back: after months of harassment by the management and intimidation by the HR department, the Lemur has had enough. One evening, after everyone had gone home, the Lemur set the office building ablaze. She then commandeered the fire department's airship, putting her signature graffiti tag over the firefighters' sign, watched the loathed walls go up in flames, before letting go and setting sail for her new adventure.
Travels and more
