Ce qui rend possible

The Encounter (La Rencontre) · 2025
Soft pastel and pastel pencils on archival paper
29.7 × 42 cm

While creating La Rencontre, the process of drawing a portrait led me to observe a face with a degree of attention that we do not always give it in everyday life.

As I worked with pastel, I gradually discovered the diversity of details that made up the face: the variations of colour in the iris, the pores and subtle tones of the skin, the fine facial hairs, and the transitions of light. What I had initially perceived as a familiar whole gradually revealed particularities I had not noticed as closely before. To represent them, I had to look longer, distinguish differences that were sometimes almost imperceptible, and find ways to make them visible on paper.

The time devoted to representing the face also changed the way I perceived it. I was no longer simply trying to reproduce what was in front of me: the process was allowing me to encounter, in a different way, a presence I thought I could already see. Looking at the portrait, I experienced that sense of presence again, along with the memory of the many details I had learned to discern.

This experience connects with a question at the heart of my artistic inquiry, Ce qui rend possible (What Makes Possible): what makes an encounter possible, and what might it make possible in turn? It led me to consider that a presence, even a familiar one, can still surprise us when we approach it with an open and attentive gaze.

“To encounter a presence is not simply to be face to face with it. Perhaps it is to slow down long enough to let it reappear differently.”

Neuroglyph (Neuroglyphe)  · 2022
Black fineliner on textured Clairefontaine paper, 250 gsm
29.7 × 42 cm

I wanted to develop a graphic language that would remain engaging both from a distance and up close. From afar, the viewer should be able to recognise a coherent face. On moving closer, they would discover not an arbitrary accumulation of marks, but a multitude of small decisions contributing to that coherence.

I constructed this portrait from tiny ink strokes. Each one had to take into account its position, the light, the shadows, and the marks already in place. In darker areas, the strokes grew thicker; in lighter areas, they became finer. Their direction was determined progressively, according to the forms I was seeking to bring out and the possibilities opened up by the preceding strokes. Each decision, in turn, changed the conditions for the strokes that followed, while maintaining an overall regularity in their arrangement and spacing, as well as the legibility of the face.

It was only later, when reflecting on this drawing experience, that a broader question emerged for me: how can we take part in an already established whole, work with what we inherit, and in turn leave behind conditions with which others will, in turn, have to work?

“Each line meets its constraints and adapts its course. Yet from their variations, a face holds together.”

Beyond (Au-delà)  · 2026
Soft pastel, pastel pencils and touches of charcoal on paper
42 × 59.4 cm

This work originates in my experience of Goma, the city where I grew up. Volcanic eruptions, armed conflicts, and tensions surrounding mineral resources have profoundly disrupted lives and the possibilities of living one's life.

What strikes me is the way everyday life continues amid these upheavals. Despite displacement, losses, and disruptions, people work, farm, trade, and maintain their relationships, sometimes out of necessity, without this continuity erasing what they have been through. This led me to consider how much a person can carry without it being immediately apparent, or being enough to define who they are.

In conceiving Au-delà, I wanted to make this distinction tangible. My choice of model came to meet this intention: I recognised in her a singular quality that resonated with what I was seeking to express.

Working in pastel, I sought to bring together several elements drawn from these realities within a single portrait, to make perceptible what is not necessarily apparent at first glance. Their arrangement, forms, and textures required exploration in order to integrate them into the portrait while preserving its unity and the orientation of the person depicted.

“What she has lived through remains inscribed. Her gaze keeps its own course.”

The Same Ground (Un même sol)  · 2026
Soft pastel on archival paper
59.4 × 42 cm

This work originates in my experience of Goma, the city where I grew up. I wanted to create a still life that would offer a way of approaching the identity of this territory through elements associated with it, without directly depicting its landscapes or inhabitants.

Volcanic activity, armed conflicts, and the region's resources are part of its history. But Goma is also a place of agriculture, cultural diversity, trade, and rich plant and animal life. These realities do not simply follow one another: they coexist, sometimes in difficult relationships, within the same territory.

Working in pastel, I brought together elements drawn from these different realities within a single composition. Around a grenade marked by wear are plants, flowers, fruits, and a sunbird. Shell casings and mineral materials rest on ground crossed by fissures in volcanic hues.

“Each element can be named. None, on its own, can speak for the land.”

What Water Holds (Ce que l’eau retient)  · 2026
Soft pastel and pastel pencil on paper
42 × 59.4 cm

What Water Holds is a pastel work devoted to the forested peatlands of the Congo Basin. It depicts a forest still standing: dark water, trunks, roots, leaves, and plant matter compose a calm, almost ordinary landscape. The work represents neither catastrophe nor a dramatic opposition between a “before” and an “after.” I wanted the water to be encountered first as part of the landscape, before the viewer gradually comes to understand what depends on it.

While preparing this work, I discovered how peatlands function, something I had previously known little about. This research first shifted my own way of seeing. I then sought to make that shift perceptible and shareable, without turning the phenomenon into a symbol or an illustration of catastrophe.

In the peatlands of the Congo Basin, hydrological conditions keep the soil waterlogged. This limits the replenishment of oxygen in the soil and slows the decomposition of the leaves, wood, and roots that accumulate there. Over time, this plant matter, accumulated beneath the forest and only partially decomposed, forms peat. Peat stores immense amounts of carbon which, if released into the atmosphere, would contribute to global warming.

“Within this visual stillness lies a stability that extends beyond this place.”

Held (Entre les mains)  · 2022
Charcoal and graphite on paper
42 × 59.4 cm

This work emerged from a cultural workshop that brought together artists from different disciplines to explore the realities experienced in the Great Lakes region. Drawing on my experience of Goma, I wanted to convey a situation in which people face constraints without always being able to speak out against them or act freely, for fear of the consequences.

To construct this image, I worked in charcoal and graphite, drawing on several models: one for the head and others for the hands. I chose to focus the composition on the face and the gestures imposed upon it. Two hands cover the eyes, while others hold the sides of the head. The mouth, depicted as sewn shut, introduces another form of constraint: that of a voice prevented from speaking.

I sought to convey the tension between the possibilities taken away from someone through the actions of others and the continued presence of the person subjected to those constraints, without allowing that persistence to diminish the gravity of what is being imposed upon him.

“Each gesture takes a possibility from him. His presence remains.”

Reach (La Portée)  · 2026
Soft pastel, pastel pencil and charcoal on paper
84.1 × 59.4 cm

We sometimes give a special place to what we hold sacred. We seek to preserve it, to give it a place, and to care for it. At times, we also confuse the conditions of welcome we have established with criteria of access.

La Portée grew out of observing discrepancies between the values we profess and the way we regard others. Love for one's neighbour, for example, may be recognised as essential, while our affiliations, practices, or judgements sometimes influence how we express it.

Through studies of composition, the study of real objects, and the exploration of light in pastel, I sought to preserve the depth of the darkness while giving the glass a tangible presence. I chose its transparency so that it could define a space without concealing what it contains from view, while allowing the flame's light to pass through.

The work draws on Christian visual language, particularly its Eucharistic associations. Broken bread, a chalice, and a flame are brought together in a carefully arranged space beneath an inverted glass vessel of great clarity. This boundary establishes a real interior, while the flame's light also reaches the guava placed outside.

“We can circumscribe what has been entrusted to us without possessing how far its presence carries.”