Milène Artist Interview
1. First of all, could you please briefly introduce the creative theme of this residency program at the Lion's Eye Gallery in Shanghai, as well as the main creative inspirations and ideas during this period?
Milène:
To make the creation as natural as it would be in my own studio, I continued with my usual working method. I brought about 200 private photos and movie screenshots, and every day I searched for inspiration from them, creating new paintings. The theme remains my beloved flowers, outlines and faces, but I don't make sketches, allowing the images to naturally emerge in the current mood. This "unexpectedness" is crucial for me - each painting is an experiment, documenting the suspended time in the studio.
2. Your artistic style is highly recognizable, and the pictures often have a hazy, fleeting poetic quality. How would you describe your artistic style and core creative method to an audience unfamiliar with your works?
Milène:
I dilute the pigments with turpentine and create atmosphere by layering thin layers. I use transparency to make the canvas faintly visible. I didn't formally study painting; I learned about painting as an art about layers while observing paintings from the side in museums. I seek balance between "skimming over" and "meticulous detailing", dancing between "disorientation" and "control" - this is the dialogue between the canvas and me.
3. You start each day in the studio with a meditation of sitting still. How did this habit form in your creative life, and what does it bring to your daily creation?
Milène:
I always wonder about the sense of disconnection from reality in daily life. But when painting, I can regain my thoughts and deeply root myself in reality. Painting is not an escape, but a state that brings me into clarity and focus. It sharpens my gaze and thoughts, perhaps like a form of meditation, yet it brings me closer to reality than ever before.
4. "Transience" is the core of your creation. For you, is painting an attempt to "retain" those elusive moments, or is it instead to reach some kind of reconciliation with this "unretainable" essence and praise it?
Milène:
It's an attempt to retain the elusive moments. I value the creative process itself, and the paintings are an abstract witness of that "hovering time". I want to capture the things that are impossible to capture - even with images, the purpose is not to reproduce what is seen, but to reveal what was initially unseen. The moments of inspiration are the most precious.
5. In your portrait works, you deliberately blur the faces to eliminate narrative. How do you determine the degree of blurriness for a portrait?
Milène:
The image is just the starting point. Flowers allow me to more easily slip into abstraction, while faces are more difficult to handle. Blurring is not necessarily defocusing; I prefer "suggesting" rather than "explaining". I don't want narrative to overshadow the painting; I want it to speak for itself. Therefore, I stay away from the concrete, reduce narration, and only evoke the viewer's curiosity and questioning.
6. You mentioned "once the work is completed, I stop painting and won't make any revisions because revising again would destroy the moment of creation at that time". Then, what do you use as a criterion to determine when a work is complete?
Milène:
During the painting process, the work often evolves, shifts, and even goes out of control. I have a dialogue with it, sometimes losing control, sometimes taking control. I don't know when it's complete, but I know when it's "overdone". Continuous painting training has sharpened my gaze, allowing me to perceive if a painting has achieved harmony - can it see through all layers, glimpse the skeleton, and feel a "peculiarity". The painting often needs to "mature" in the studio for several days, and I forget about it before discovering it with a new perspective. But I can't go back and make revisions, as that would distort the emotional moment of creation.
7. Your upbringing environment was far from the city, and during your childhood, you were more immersed in the world of nature and flowers rather than receiving systematic art training. You think that such early experiences have fundamentally nourished your initial understanding and interest in art, and ultimately shaped your unique personal style?
Milène:
People always draw nourishment from their environment. I'm fortunate to have grown up in a green environment. Without the corresponding cultural and social background, achieving success in this field indeed requires more perseverance.
8. You once said that your grandmother's garden was almost your first "museum". Could you share how this childhood memory continues to influence your current creative work? Flowers seem to run through your works, is this childhood memory what keeps you constantly focused on natural flower creation and interest?
Milène:
I was raised by my grandparents, and going through the garden with my grandmother every morning was a ritual that has continued to this day. She passed on her love for flowers to me, I love listening to her talk about flowers, and I also love watching how they change with the seasons. She drew small flower bouquets and made dried flower postcards, and I participated as well. Later, I took evening painting classes. The grandmother's garden was my first museum, it taught me to sharpen my thoughts and view flowers in a more philosophical way: repeatedly drawing flowers, almost like a form of resistance. Flowers are fleeting, only by realizing the brevity of life can one truly love flowers. This is like appreciating paintings in a museum. Flowers and the painting medium both tend towards light, disappearing, recurring, and rebirth from seeds - that's exactly what I want to capture. This makes flowers and the painting medium both full of life. My abstract view of painting makes flowers my main theme.
9. In the Chinese painting tradition, the painting of flowers often creates a "empty" atmosphere through blank spaces, maintaining tension between "empty" and "full" in the picture. You mentioned being interested in the concept of "empty and full" in Chinese philosophy, and the hazy space in your works also presents a similar sense of breathing. For you, is the "empty" in the work meant to make the flowers more fluid and luminous, or is it itself an existence with energy and meaning?
Milène:
For me, painting and the subject are separate. Flowers are just an excuse, the painting itself is what matters. Chinese painting's "empty" attracts me because it makes the painting tend towards spirituality. I also see my paintings this way. "Empty" is an open space, allowing the real life to be possible. The concept of "breathing" and "life energy" contained within it fascinates me - I have practiced Tai Chi and Qigong for many years. For me, everything needs harmony. The core of Chinese painting is the brushstroke, it is intrinsically connected to the "empty" of the canvas. Without "empty", there would be no brushstroke. Painting is like Tai Chi, the key lies in finding the just right momentum.
10. Writing is an important part of your artistic practice. Could you talk about how words usually pave the way for your visual creations? When words are transformed into colors and shapes, something is inevitably "lost". In this process, what can painting "gain" that words cannot offer?
Milène:
I love how the language of painting can express what is invisible. It is more powerful, giving more freedom and imagination. Painting helps me see better, I want to share my perspective and the emotions during creation - to be immersed in the indescribable.
11. From the French rural garden to the Brussels studio, and now to Shanghai, the light and atmosphere of different environments have left unique marks on your works. Please talk about how the light and rhythm of this city, Shanghai, are influencing your dialogue with the canvas?
Milène:
I am greatly influenced by the studio environment, and I can easily adapt to any place. Changing studios, the paintings always differ. In Shanghai, my days are dominated by painting and long-distance night walks - sometimes walking 20+ kilometers in one night, which helps me think.
12. You mentioned that during this stay at Lion's Gallery, you really wanted to try creating several large canvases at the same time. This change in the scale of the work, apart from bringing about the freedom of physical space, could you please talk about what new creative experiences this working method has brought to you?
Milène:
I am accustomed to drawing multiple sizes simultaneously based on the space. This is very important because the way of handling the sizes is different, and I need them to nourish each other and achieve balance. Large paintings are actually simpler - mistakes are easier to hide and there is more room for maneuver.
13. You have held exhibitions in both Europe and Asia. Have you observed that the audiences in different regions have different reactions to your works? What feedback has surprised or inspired you?
Milène:
I didn't see significant differences. In Asia, people see the Asian side in my paintings; in Belgium, they see more Flemish references. And the paintings created in Shanghai, I felt a strong Chinese influence.
14. Looking back at all my creations, from the initial garden memories to the new works during my stay in Shanghai, what kind of emotion or state do you hope the audience can feel from my paintings? What do you most hope people will take away when they leave your exhibition?
Milène:
Painting is like breathing to me, it is a living thing. I first paint for myself, as a kind of release. Of course, I also need the gaze of others. To evoke an emotion - whatever it is - is already very meaningful. My primary goal is to let people see my perspective, my truth.