Where it all began
While wandering the beaches of my childhood — at Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer in Normandy, where the D-Day landing shores stretch wide — I stumbled, one day in 2001, upon a fragment of sea glass, reshaped by time and tides into something both fragile and eternal.
That shard of glass, jostled with every step in my trousers pocket alongside a pretty stone circled with fine white lines, and some pearly shells, which would find a place of honour in my apartment—and, more deeply, in my thoughts.
Worn and perfectly smoothed—too perfect, perhaps, to be only “glass”—its bluish green turning grey in the light. Above all, it felt precious.
Ever since then, I have gathered sea glassTo observe without fully understanding. To scrutinize so I could dream. Why did these battered jewels draw my gaze? What would become of these scarred yet soft fragments, simple in appearance yet heavy with stories?
In the vastness of the ocean, glass takes thousands of years to return to dust. A bottle tossed overboard begins a slow transformation, shrinking grain by grain into sand—while in that fleeting moment of release, the hand that cast it feels powerful.
For twenty years, my art wandered through theater, writing, music, and painting—yet within it remained an empty space, a silent drawer, a loose shelf sheltering all those fragments of glass. Greens, blues, yellows, whites, deep greens and golds; blends of brown and orange, gray and sometimes turquoise—countless shades tossed by the waves began to color my thoughts, assembling into a mosaic stretched between the abyss and the surface.
It's walking on the beaches of my childhood — more precisely in Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer, Normandy, home of my parents — that on a day of the year 2001, I saw a piece of glass polished by the elements and time...
That shard of glass, jostled with every step in a trouser pocket alongside one or two fossils, a pretty stone circled with fine white lines, and a few pearly shells, would find a place of honor in my apartment—but more singularly, its place in my mind…
It was worn, perfectly smoothed—too much, perhaps, to be mere glass—its bluish-green hue shifting to gray in the light. But above all, to me, it was PRECIOUS!
At the dawn of this century, I resolved to gather them carefully during my walks, to observe without understanding, to scrutinize so I could dream…
Why were they so alluring to my eyes? What would I do with these battered jewels, scarred yet smooth to the touch, seemingly simple but laden with stories?
In seas and oceans, moved by eternal rhythms, it takes four thousand years for glass to return to dust… Cast overboard, a glass object will take its time to grow small in this vast and mysterious new world, until it becomes a grain of sand—while, in a single gesture, raising a bottle, humankind, joyous or tormented, will feel immense in an instant!
For twenty years, my mind wandered through theater, writing, music, painting… yet within it lingered an empty space, a silent drawer, a loose shelf sheltering all those fragments of glass.
Between green, blue, yellow, white, green or dark yellow, mixture of brown and orange, grey, sometimes even turquoise, the multiple nuances of these debris swollen by the waves colored my thoughts to assemble them into a mosaic spread between the abyss and the surface.
The Turning Point
I walked without purpose, listening to the tiny crackle of shells beneath my feet, scattered across a path of a thousand hues, when my gaze landed on a triangular shard—delicately polished, holding within it a metallic filament drawn like a square. Solid and unusual, this triangle, revealing a kind of skeleton, felt instantly familiar.
Like a fin severed from its body—hydrodynamic, resolute against time—it offered an answer: it would tell the story of a shark.
What had seemed merely waste became a revelation. Transparent fragments, nearly invisible, patiently awaiting erosion: I began to admire their shapes and to listen quietly to what they had to say.
From bottle to Dream
In assembling them, the images appeared. For what reason—or what folly—did these glass bottles find themselves at the bottom of the seas? Perhaps a sailor in despair; a kiss in the heart of a storm; a fisherman and his solitude; a quarrel fueled by too much drink; a wedding upon the water; a breakup at the edge of a shore; a shipwreck; a message in a bottle—or, more plainly, our disregard for the Earth.
A simple bottle sliding silently into the dark depths delivers its message as it touches the ocean floor, shattering to scatter the clues of its brief voyage. From this container, I began my quest for content.
And here, reality steps back—so that dream may begin.
