Grandeur nature

I cherish the memory in my mind of the big animals in Kenya, where, as an adolescent, their beauty engulfed me, their images forming a lasting foundation that feeds my work, from inks on paper to life-sized landscapes, right through to « éléphantômatiques », my stencilled street-art works.

As a child, I loved stalking, scrutinizing, admiring, looking for and flushing out animals. It filled me with wonder. As soon as they sniffed us, got wind of us, they froze, observing, considering, gauging, then glared at us. I told myself that maybe I could be, who knows… one of them!

Since then, I have caressed them with the bristles of my paintbrushes made from sable, squirrel, pig, goat, cat or rat. They pose like trophies whose pelts are ink on paper, their gaze fraternal; yes, that’s it, that’s what I felt since childhood: we are siblings living in the same house, same planet, Earth.

My work pays homage to the animal kingdom, at the heart of wildlife, in a series of singular portraits. Like on the first morning of the world, massive rhinoceros and lascivious felines, zebras, elephants, giraffes, monkeys, pandas, toucans, dolphins… incarnate as the strokes of my brush graze them and tame them. Golden highlights remind us the luminosity and energy of the sun, on which life depends.

Caroline Desnoëttes, 2018