SKIN DEEP MAGAZINE • 31The idea with these illustrations was to put them inside a
fantasist interpretation, almost humorous.
How long does a project like ‘Chair de fer’ represent?
Well, 4 years, from 2014 to 2018. I was still tattooing at the
time and it was a bit tricky to work on it in parallel.
You worked with a Bic pen for these illustrations.
Technically, what difficulties did it represent?
I always worked with hatching to represent volumes.
I’ve inherited this from artists like Liberatore when he
started, Al Voss, Burn, Mezzo... The Bic —when you make
a mistake —has no mercy. It’s dead, there is no way to
put some white to correct it or acrylic, because the ink
comes up in the end. For the little mistakes though, you
can scratch, depending on the thickness of the paper.
And for the big mistakes, the only solution is to cut and
replace. The faster way for sure is the felt tip, but it has
less nuances. With the Bic you can play with the thickness
of the line, as my style is close to etching. And it’s a good
training for the etching where I want to concentrate. You
can’t make any mistakes either. I also like the fact that it
is very immediate. You can do it in any kind of position. I
ended up sometimes working on my knees. I got a good
back pain from that. But it has much more freedom: no
preparation, no colour mix, etc.
Which format do you usually work on?
Generally on A4, with paper of ivory colour or light grey,
highlights of white come later. I work with A3 for music
albums’ sleeves.
I feel your work hasn’t been that detailed until now,
how do you explain that?