I don’t find anything, I search… I can’t create without getting into a mindset of discovery and play. […] I think this mindset has structured my life. As long as I keep this greedy way of living, I will feel the need to transform this energy into something else. For me, creating is a way to keep feeling alive and free, if I can. […] I wouldn’t say I am a painter. I have too much respect for painting, and it doesn’t really fit my work. I am rather a drawer than a painter anyway. But I am an unsatisfied drawer and I always feel like something is missing in my drawings. Letters and numbers are a way to balance spaces. They are like punctuations marks, tattoos even maybe. […] I often draw inspiration from illustrations I find in encyclopedias and dictionaries, which I have been reading since I am 14 years old. They always come with a bunch of letters and numbers that refer to a corpus or a codex. When you add numbers or letters to a drawing, it becomes the premises of something else. […] I should mention that I am more interested in what I find than in the act of searching. Searching is premeditated, and it is a risky business! […] I love the idea that I might find something I don’t expect. […] I can never precisely define the potentiality of an object, but once I spot it, part of my brain tells me there is something to do with it. […] For a couple of years, I have only been listening to my imagination, driven by a sort of dreamlike impulse. It enables me to feel like I have total creative freedom. If I do well, it shows, and if I don’t, it does too! […] Playing with chance gives me an incredible feeling of power. […] In my studio, I am in my own self-sufficient world. I don’t judge my works while making them. It is as if I had a flap in my mind that suspended and forbade hasty judgments. […] Although creating requires decision-making at every step, critical thinking comes at another time. It takes so much time to create, and since I experiment a lot, I need to produce a lot to have a few good works.
Excerpts from the interview conducted by Henri-François Debailleux
