At the end of March 2016, after two weeks of fight,

the city of Palmyra was liberated.

I saw pictures of the Roman amphitheater: it remained intact. Nothing seemed to have moved there. The rigorous lines of its stairs, sometimes shaken by the damages of time deeply inspired me.I had tried to use yellow ochre for years but I never could. I was perhaps scared by its harshness. Men have used this color from the beginning. It is a very primal color, the color of soil, sand and rocks. It is one of the colors in the cave paintings. We find in it a direct connection to our ancestors, a link to our commun ground.I couldn’t help but looking at those pictures. To me, the stairs of this amphitheater were an attempt to create order out of chaos. This series couldn’t be smooth and clean as my paintings usually are. I had to choose a different technique. I decided to give up my brushes and use knifes. The canvas had to be different as well. It should match the roughness of the stone. I chose a thicker fabric.

After a few months, the relief, the harshness, the texture finally appeared at the surface. My art isn’t political, I tend to focus on beauty thinking that if war begat chaos, harmony must be found in paintings.