“I wander from memory to memory…”
Paul Zimmerman in conversation with Céline Vankimmenade
Paul Zimmerman: How did you develop interest in art?
Céline Vankimmenade: Through education. Being immersed very early in an academy of art, surrounded by works, I came to understand a universe where there were questions that asked other questions that resembled me. Over time, I realized that this was a place of art. More than an interest, it was a sort of base of reference and vocabulary.
PZ: What subjects are you interested in?
CV: How to place a red or a blue, a word or a line, and that this reveals the commitment to be in and in front of the world. Any subject has the potential to interest me when it is in pursuit of this.
PZ: What is your artistic process? How do you create your works?
CV: Unbelievably intimate. I wander from memory to memory, watching myself abandon the regard only to find it again without influence in the crude gesture of that moment.
PZ: What is the most challenging aspect of your work?
CV: Respecting the time.
PZ: Have your practice changed over time?
CV: My concentration has grown, which has expanded and intensified the way I apply the paint. It’s as if a depth of matter is able to take over my thoughts through the paint itself. Naming less and less, I fell and see more.
PZ: How would you describe your style?
CV: A format of large surfaces, worked to tame.
PZ: Which artists are you most. influenced by?
CV: My greatest influences are Magritte, Hopper, African painters, Cy Twonbly, and Rothko.
PZ: What is art?
CV: The mind via a vocabulary of meaning and emotion.
PZ: What are you working on now?
CV: An in between and doubling of oneself, on which I’m accompanied by the novel
The Ravishing of Lol by Marguerite Duras.
PZ: How does the pandemic influence your work and sensibility?
CV: It’s like a body that can’t dance. As we move about, we no longer know where to take part or to
protect ourselves. Therefore, the posture of engagement raises questions.