Clément Davout
Painter
• How do you cultivate a sense of curiosity or play in your practice?
By always adding new elements, trying out new possibilities, varying certain parameters. Every creation is the result of an experimentation, and each experiment lifts my curiosity, raising new questions that I want to answer through creation.
• How do you motivate yourself to paint when you’re not in the mood to paint?
I have a quite ritualized rhythm with a timetable that I try to follow. In my case, making a painting requires several work sessions, and all I want to do is get to the last one. When paintings are started, it gives me a certain positive energy, even if making them is always hard because it's all about dealing with the medium. Being in a rhythm allows me to ask myself fewer questions and overcome slack periods. After that, when I really don't feel like it and the various deadlines allow me to, I don't force myself. From experience, I've learned that this doesn't do any good.
• How do you stay connected to your creative purpose?
It's something I have in me, this willingness to create. I don't have to force myself in any way; the desire to do something and the wonder of it all come naturally. It's a bit like static electricity; creation sticks to me. I let myself be moved by subjects and try to express them as best I can, both in painting and in making music, sometimes in the form of installations or, more recently, in writing.