My work is rooted in an aesthetic of contact: touching, feeling, rubbing, wiping, pressing… Each stage of the engraving process is an exchange between materials: skin and copper, skin and ink, skin, ink and the tarlatan,..
My body becomes a space for encountering matter. In this visceral relationship, it's not simply a matter of producing an image, but of questioning what it means to leave a mark today. Engraving is more than just a means of printing for me: it's an embodied experience that reveals a deeper dimension: that of traces, passages, and memories inscribed both in the material and in my own lived experience. There's something almost performative about it, as if each engraving were the witness to an act, an encounter between my body and the engraved surface.…
When the roller makes contact with the plate, it's not simply a matter of depositing ink, but a true encounter between two materials. The rubber of the roller and the metal of the copper adjust to one another, recognize each other, and respond to one another. The hand, guiding the movement, feels this slight resistance, this adhesion where the surface of the copper attracts and retains the film of ink. The muffled sound of the roller on the copper, the tension in the hand searching for the right weight and speed: all this becomes a dialogue of pressures and glides. The plate is not passive; it, in turn, imprints its presence on the roller. On the rubber, the memory of the groove is traced in negative: the motif is revealed as ghostly and ephemeral. The hollows of the plate are transcribed in relief on the roller, as if the material were responding to the material. The copper plate is already engraving its imprint on the tool that was to cover it. Thus, the act of inking is not unilateral: it is reciprocal. The roller gives and receives, deposits and retains. What is imprinted on the roller is fleeting but real: an image that precedes the image, a trace before the trace.
The paper is so light, so fragile, that it seems to float beneath the hand. The fibers brush against the fingers, absorbing the warmth and oils of the skin, leaving a precarious imprint. Then comes the moment of the press: that stage where the body's force is externalized and extended into the mechanics of the metal. The plate and the paper embrace under the pressure. What takes place here is not a simple impression, but an encounter. The copper resists, the paper yields; the tension between the two surfaces gives birth to the image. When the paper lifts, still damp, still warm from the effort, the trace of contact appears, the memory of a gesture transformed into matter.
This phenomenon reveals a deeper truth of engraving: every imprint is reversible. Each contact alters the two surfaces involved. The copper, the roller, the hand, the paper, and the body record each other. All these moments of contact become a metaphor for the artistic relationship itself: everything is exchange. The material remembers the gesture, the tools remember the forms, and the body, too, retains the sensation of contact.
Everything in engraving speaks of the body: its energy, its fatigue, its breath, its desire to leave an imprint. The plate retains the warmth of the hand, the paper preserves the shape of the passage. In this experience, the boundary between the artist and the material disappears. My engraving practice is part of an approach where my body becomes a space for encountering the material. I do not seek to represent the world, but to experience this relationship between gesture, skin, and surface. The plate, the paper, the ink: so many sensitive interfaces through which the body thinks, acts, and leaves a trace.
etchings works / Marsyas / among others / à peine / hollow