Biography
A native of France, Christophe arrived in the United States in 2003 to pursue a full-time art career. He now paints mostly with oil paints after working with pastels and acrylic for years. Primarily self-taught, he has studied with several artists statewide and nationally. He received a grant to take a workshop with a Master Pastelist. After becoming a professional artist, he won more than fifty awards during his first six years. His works can be found in collections throughout the United States and Europe. His commissions include three produced posters for Absente liquor and Pango Rhum publicity campaigns. He enjoy teaching painting classes in FL and giving workshops in USA and France. He works has been showed in France, USA included New York City. He had several solo shows in FL and France.
Artist statement
My love for nature probably came at an early age. I grew up in a French countryside hunting with my father in the forest and in a field of sunflowers; gardening and harvesting the raspberries with my mother; and hiking each summer in a field of poppies when I was a boy scout. During my honeymoon in Key West, I was amazed by the way colors were affected by the intense light. Moving to Florida a few years later with my New Jersey wife, whom I met as a pen pal in high school, allowed me to realize my life-long dream to become a professional artist in my new spiritual home. Born as a Capricorn, I have enough patience to build my studio little by little so that I can arrange my collection of treasures that I have found in nature. I have a huge passion for tropical plants, seashells and crystals, not only because they reflect bright colors but also because of their geometrical shape. My goal is to immortalize and share the beauty of the place I live or visit. As a visual person, I prefer to communicate by telling my stories with pigment rather than writing in my journal with black ink. I love painting in plein air, standing up on the ground and being in my element, “earth” where I can commune with Mother Nature. Of course, it is also a good excuse to travel and discover new and beautiful secrets of nature. After having painted landscapes for a few decades, I am now challenging myself to add people, animals, birds and fish in my waterscapes in order to bring more life into my work and tell a story. My favorite classes at school was art and mathematics. I believe now that they are related because that’s the way nature was designed. That’s probably why I am today a scientist artist, and prepare my paintings like I am making a puzzle. I arrange everything by numbers but never painted by numbers! I use the Golden Ratio for my compositions to create unity and harmonious proportions in my work. I believe that this fundamental tool was used to create the universe. It is found everywhere from a microscopic to gigantic object. I love especially the logarithmic spirals found in botanicals and seashells that I use to create movement and balance in my work. I use only the six colors of light which are seen in a rainbow that allows me to keep my colors in harmony. I prefer to minimize color mixing and apply pure broken color strokes in order to recreate the local colors by optical vision. This allows me to achieve the maximum of light to reflect in my paintings. I am constantly searching for new pigments and products to refine my work. I hope to live long enough to teach every student at school the truth about colors, heal my doctor’s patients by exhibiting my paintings in his office and become an absolute artist.