Résidence Pôle 1
JUNE 2023
In June 2023, I boarded the trimaran of Arctic Lab Expedition with Vincent Grison and Didier Botta for a rather special artistic residency. I had been waiting for years to sail across the English Channel to the Tate St Ives to see paintings by Peter Lanyon (1918-1964). For centuries, there has been an affinity between the sky and painting, and this artist is a worthy representative of that connection. This stop in the southwest of England was my way of getting closer to Lanyon, a glider pioneer who drew inspiration from the sensations of free flight to explore abstract painting. I walked through his landscapes and flew in a paraglider within the same air mass as the British artist.
The journey continued further north after this first stop in Cornwall. Throughout the 1500-mile (about 3000 km) journey, the formula repeated itself: sailing, walking, flying. After each landing, I had this phrase in my mind: “We celebrated the landscape.” The journey built up, getting farther from home, into colder waters. Every day, I thought about the down jacket I had left behind in my studio.
The villages became smaller, and there were fewer and fewer docks in the ports. Scotland is the land of clouds, it swallows the entire landscape. It reminded me of old video games where unexplored territory stays grayed out, invisible until you venture into it.
When we arrived in the Faroe Islands, we flew in the clouds at Porkery. A few drops of rain at the end. We discovered Ruth Smith, a painter from the southernmost island. Modest formats, a great colorist, who hardly ever exhibited during her lifetime. Dipping our hands into the cold seawater to do the dishes, we continued north. No need for headlamps anymore. At night, it stays light. It’s no longer an oxymoron.
As we neared the coast, we saw a piece of drifting sea ice. I needed to tell myself that I was in Iceland to truly realize it. Gliding from country to country is disorienting. The butter is getting hard on board.
A month after leaving Saint-Quay-Portrieux in Brittany, we had only a few days of navigation left to reach our final destination, Ísafjörður in the northwest of Iceland, where two scientific brothers, Jules and Anatole Danto, would take my place on board.
After this voyage that took us to Iceland, I returned to Brittany and visited Molène and Lédenez for the first time. It was the beginning of autumn. On the island’s west side, the sea was impassable—the swell, the current, and the rocks made the water boil. Even in the middle and at the highest point of the island, you could still feel the sea spray, and I had the sensation that I could be swept away by the sea and the wind. During this solitary excursion, I reflected on my previous sailing adventure, from Paimpol to Ibiza. The feeling of vulnerability on this piece of land helped me connect with the state I was in, alone on my boat off the coast of Spain. By doing a few sketches, I think I found the images I had been missing to complete my series of paintings, Ibiza Solo.