Xavier Veilhan

We developed the work on marquetry in the studio over the last two years. What I find interesting about marquetry is that it’s the essence of wood with tonal variations but there isn’t really any colour. However, I made it with painted pieces of wood.

We photographed some existing statues in the studio whose faceted surfaces capture the light. Then we reframed the images that we’d taken in order to reproduce and recompose them with pieces of wood, like a jigsaw puzzle. Integral to this process was using an algorithm; what I like is how this process generates colours which aren’t really created by me but by several stages during the realisation of the artwork. It’s also about trying to bring painting to images that deal with the representation of objects. For example, I’m very interested in religious icons that are half objects, half images.

I think the production of a form is interesting when it isn’t too detailed and is slightly generic. I like having a certain distance towards the people that I’m representing. It’s a way of making their personality or psychology appear rather than me trying to project something onto their form. I like the word “blank” in English. The sculptures that I make are “blank”, to be filled in by other people projecting themselves onto them. As the author, I can’t express their feelings. But I’m just there to listen, leaving it up to the viewer to complete [the image] on a sentimental level.

The same reasoning lies behind why I make blurred sculptures that give the impression of being ghosts and of having only one surface. What interests me in both the faceted and blurred works is the existence of the silhouette, the body and the physical side of the posture which is what makes someone identifiable. It isn’t someone’s facial features that render them recognisable but their posture and way of moving.

Yes, it’s the same technique but it’s evolving, becoming increasingly faster and lighter. I was in Japan in May to make a family portrait of kabuki actors and we made the 3D scans much quicker than the series on music producers eight years ago.

I met Onoe Maholo’s parents at an exhibition that I had in Japan 15 years ago and we kept in touch. His mother, Terajima Shinobu, won a Silver Bear for best actress at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2010. I gave them a copy of the catalogue of my exhibition ‘Dessins de Confinement’ [Lockdown Drawings] at the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris last year. The son saw a drawing that he liked and asked for a drawing by me to appear on the curtain. It was a very moving experience because it was the passage towards adulthood of this 10-year-old child actor. According to the rituals of kabuki, all the family members were on stage except the mother because in the Japanese culture women can’t play kabuki roles. I made a 3D scan of the actor, his mother, father and grandfather for a group portrait – it’s a work that I’m developing without knowing where it’ll be presented.

I was very comfortably settled but deprived of my relationship to the studio. I could go there but it was empty and I didn’t have anyone around to help me do anything. I had to find a way to do things on my own so I started this series of drawings which became like a daily game almost. Several times a day, I would draw without knowing what I was really going to do. I also had an exhibition in Japan that I couldn’t attend but had to organise things for it virtually which was frustrating but interesting, too.

Virginie Viard, Chanel’s artistic director, asked me to reflect upon and develop things not for one catwalk show but for three catwalk shows, over a duration of time. It’s breaking out of this hysterical repetition of fashion. What appealed to me was the possibility of doing something a bit different. I’m quite curious about techniques and technologies; we could work quite fast and see the result on a scale that I didn’t already know. Now we’re working on a film and a book about this experience.

It’s a very good and mysterious question because a lot of things in art are based on incomprehension. One of the interesting things about doing projects abroad is that we’re all a bit alike but culturally there are enormous differences from one place to the next. Art is almost a reason for testing out these misunderstandings.

It’s very important for me to try to make films and shows. When I can’t manage to do something in the studio or an exhibition, I create a show or film. I’m working on a new live show called ‘Tout l’Univers’. One [humanity] is always exploring further in the galaxy but can no longer understand the dimensions that are so incredible. So I’m making something with very small means about the poetry of immeasurable existence. We’re working on a metallic, crane-like structure with embedded screens around which they’ll be performers. And we’re collaborating with the composer Frédéric Lo and the pianist Ève Risser. It’s a co-production with the Théâtre National de Bretagne, Fondation d’entreprise Hermès and the Cité Internationale Universitaire of Paris that will be shown in several places from November.

I’d like to work on a project that’s yet to be defined. I’m looking for an idea that I could work on without an institution, without a gallery, without an invitation, just with my team in the studio, trying to develop something to show afterwards.

Yes. At the origin of Les Moulins is the artists Lucy and Jorge Orta who bought this [former factory] and sold [part of the site] to Galleria Continua who are friends of mine. I like the dynamic of Les Moulins and it’s more interesting than being alone in the countryside. At the same time, I want it to be a personal project. The architects Lacaton and Vassal, who won the Pritzker Prize in 2021, are designing my building [on a plot purchased from the Ortas]. The reason why I’m doing this is to have a space that’ll be free for developing projects and collaborations, where young people can work with musicians and rehearse shows. It could be used as a film location and for making furniture and lighting because I like design too. The building should be finished within a year, perhaps at Christmas.