PORTRAIT

 Mother-of-pearl fascinates me because it offers a wide spectrum of colors that vary depending on the light that illuminates it. Working with it is a new experience every time, because as a natural material, its thickness, hardness, and the shape of the shell vary. Each piece is therefore unique.

This subject is for me both noble and modest. ; noble because it has always been used by Man to decorate his most sacred places or objects, modest because it is hidden in shells which are only the receptacle of other coveted products, such as pearls, or even the flesh of abalones. I thus experience real pleasure in working with the mother-of-pearl of shells sometimes destined for destruction (for example, I obtain abalone shells from New Zealand from a restaurant cooking the animal in Auckland or gray mother-of-pearl from Tahiti from pearl farms). This work takes the form of cutting, engraving, collage, inlay...