Luxury & brands
Intimate Geography
Private commission, 40th birthday
Private commission for a 40th birthday: a biographical portrait told through places, objects and memories. Original ink drawing.
For this private commission, made for a 40th birthday, the idea was to create a portrait without ever showing the face of the person who commissioned it. Instead of a physical likeness, I set out to build his identity through the places where he has lived, his memories, his passions and the objects that have marked his life.
The drawing begins with real research. Working from a questionnaire and personal photographs, I gather the elements that tell the story of a life. Houses, cities, journeys, objects, tastes and family or cultural references then become fragments of a single composition.
At the centre, the door of his Paris apartment anchors the drawing, almost like the symbolic entrance to this intimate geography. Around it, space and time blend freely. London appears with Big Ben and St Paul’s, Paris with the Sacré-Cœur and several references to his life, while New York takes shape through its skyline and the Statue of Liberty. Further back, the Sainte-Baume mountain evokes the area around Aix-en-Provence where he lives today.
Over this personal geography come objects that work like so many clues. His Triumph, drawn with the modifications he made to the motorcycle himself, takes pride of place in the foreground. There is also his snowboard, his favourite cocktail, the Q of the Queen club in Paris and La Folie Douce. A César award and an old film camera add a family dimension, as a reference to his father.
The whale crossing the upper part of the drawing brings an almost unreal presence to this very architectural ensemble. It evokes both his commitment to ecology and the suspended whale from the stage design of Julien Doré’s concerts. Floating above the cities, it adds a more poetic, dreamlike dimension to the composition.
I built the whole without trying to respect distances or chronology. Buildings overlap, cities draw closer and objects change scale. This impossible geography works like memory itself, where distant places, periods and recollections can come together in a single image.
The result is less a portrait in the traditional sense than a biographical portrait. The face is absent, yet the person is present everywhere. Each detail has its own meaning and, set against the others, gradually builds his identity.
Géographie intime (Intimate Geography)
Private commission, 40th birthday
Original ink drawing