DS: Who do people tell you you look like ?
C: When I had my dark hair I kind of looked like Morticia in The Addams Family which i took as a huge compliment as far as I am fan of this movie.
DS: What is the compliment you most frequently get ?
C: The compliment that one makes me the most ? I would say my desire and motivation, and how I deconstruct to rebuild to try to create.
DS: How did you end-up being a videographer and artist ?
C: I always felt I would do an artistic work and I ended up getting a Graphic Design degree without really knowing what kind of job it would lead me to. My father is an art collector and I guess it's influenced me a lot as well. For my graduation project I wanted to talk about my obsession : contemporary Vanitas referring to Flemmish paintings, why there are so many skulls in our contemporary society, how come modern and contemporary art have been the most important in art history to represent skulls since Renaissance. I wanted to do it with the contemporary ephemeral media that is video mixed with the most traditional and resistant material that is ceramics. It lead me to my specialty which is animating sculptures in stop motion videos. My obsession with time passing and the approach of artists like Roman Opalka led me to create my blog as a diary of my art, my travels, influences, trends over the time.
DS: Can you tell us more about your job ?
C: As a freelancer my work is very wide. I chose to stay freelance to determine the type of project I wanted to do, to work alone and be able to change of fiels regularly. I mainly do stop motion videos from sculptures in different materials. These projects follow the themes that I chose to approach and are often personal and philosophical. I am very attached to the concept, meaning and text. Besides I have also a lot of design projects, such as illustrations, ceramics, and book layouts. I need to switch projects often. It's like breathing : first I breathe out personal projects, then I take some time on projects where I inspire that are less focused on myself and leave me time to find new inspiration. Managing my time as I want allows me to continue to attend trainings to learn new techniques to make my work evolve constantly. For example, I recently took theater courses at cours Florent to be prepared to do art performance one day.
DS: What is your favorite "drug"?
C: Read notes from Louise Bourgeois "deconstruction, reconstruction", it reassures me.
DS: What magic powder would you like to have if you could choose one ?
C: A potion that could make myself invisible so I can observe people without being seen, a way to analyze the society without its appearances.
DS: If not yourself, who would you be ?
C: I would like to be Matthew Barney, his art work are sculptural installations combined with performance and video. It's one of the most imaginative and brillant achievements in the history of avant-garde cinema.
DS: What is in the store for you ? Any projects for the next months ? Anything you want to share ? Can our readers help you with anything ?
C: As I am still working on the next projects coming up and I am very superstitious with works that are not finished yet, I invite you to follow my blog Chavanitas to hear about my actuality.
DS: Anything you want to add to close this interview ?
C: Vanitas vanitatum, omnia Chavanitas.
DS: Thank you Charlotte.
C: A bientôt.