Translated by Bethszabee Garner

From October 20, 2024, to March 2, 2025, during the 10th edition of the Vendée Globe, the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Les Sables d'Olonne (MASC) is dedicating an exhibition to Titouan Lamazou's recent work. The exhibition will be accompanied by the book Sous les étoiles (Gallimard, October 17, 2024), featuring text by Camille Mazé, director of research at the CNRS. Through more than 120 previously unseen works, the artist pays tribute to the immense richness of biodiversity, inspired by his travels in Polynesia. He wishes to share his awareness of the thinness of the film that covers our planet, where this wonderful biodiversity, to which humanity belongs, has been evolving and developing for billions of years, known as the critical zone.

Yves Derai: You paint underwater. Is this for performance purposes or does it have real artistic merit?

Titouan Lamazou: Most artists who paint the seabed use photos as a basis. It quickly becomes an advertising brochure for dream vacations... I do underwater painting, which is a very different experience.

Yves Derai: How do you do it, exactly?

T.L.: When I paint in the sea, I plant my easel on the seabed, I use oil pastels, and for the paper, I avoid cotton canvases, which tend to ripple. I use laminated paper. It's good quality paper that takes the pastel well and is water-resistant.

Yves Derai: And what about the painter's movements?

T.L.: I paint in lagoons where there is little movement. The funny thing is that the pigments in oil pastels don't all have the same density. For example, yellow floats while blue sinks. So I spend my time catching them!

Yves Derai: How did you learn these techniques?

T.L.: I met a girl who did this and she gave me some advice. She said, "Try it in your bathtub first." So that's what I did. I tested my materials and that was it. It's quite tiring, but with an oxygen tank, I can paint for two hours straight.

Yves Derai: And what is the pictorial interest compared to working from photos?

T.L.: When you settle underwater, at first the creatures flee because they mistake you for a predator. But after a few minutes, they realize you mean them no harm and they go back to doing their business. And you see them living in their environment in a very natural way. You can observe all the differences between the fish. For example, no two damselfish are alike, even though we tend to think they are all the same.

Yves Derai: Aren't you at risk of being attacked by sharks?

T.L.: No, not at all. Sharks almost never attack, especially the big ones, because if they're big, it means they're cautious. There are a few specific species that are dangerous, but I don't go near them.

Yves Derai: And how does that affect your paintings? The details are less precise, I imagine...

T.L.: There's a slightly naive aspect to the result. Some of the underwater paintings will be exhibited in Les Sables d'Olonne. In this exhibition, there are living creatures but no humans. That reflects my current research. I'm wary of people now, I'm becoming a bit of a misanthrope. And that suits me. I've done a lot of solo sailing, you know...

Yves Derai: Is your talent for observing, not imagining?

T.L.: Yes, my imagination produces rather poor results.

Yves Derai: You're still a lover of travel journals, deep down...

T.L.: I don't use that term much anymore because it's a genre that's been attached to me no matter what I do. In the same way that people call me a watercolorist, even though I've never painted a watercolor. Since the Impressionists, many artists have tried to paint from nature. When I paint forests, I've usually seen them, felt them... That's what attests to my vision.

Yves Derai: You are a man of the 20th century. Have you never wanted to embrace its artistic trends? Abstraction, conceptual art...

T.L.: No. I entered the Beaux-Arts at the age of 16 on the basis of my portfolio, I was very motivated. I had a drawing teacher who took me into his studio. He showed me the artists in vogue, pop art, etc. I worked in that movement, but I found the Beaux-Arts very academic, whereas I was curious about the world. So I left in my third year to go to sea. It was very honorable in my eyes, and free.

Yves Derai: And you gave up painting?

T.L.: No, I drew on boats, in ports, on café terraces. Then, thanks to two friends who recommended me, I did my military service on Éric Tabarly's boat. We sailed around the world for two and a half years. I learned the seafaring trade and developed a desire to compete at sea. I did a lot of that until my victory in the Vendée Globe in 1990. At that point, I told myself that I had come to the end of a cycle.

Yves Derai: Did you stop sailing?

T.L.: Competitively, yes. But I continued to travel on land and sea, like a vagabond of sorts. Always with my sketchbook.

Yves Derai: When you're very well known as a sailor, is it difficult to build a reputation as an artist?

T.L.: Yes, even though I was an artist who sailed, not the other way around. But the art world didn't take me seriously because I had a successful career as a sailor.

Yves Derai: How do you overcome these prejudices?

T.L.: You can't. Fortunately, you sometimes meet people who understand your work. In 1998, I met Marie-Claude Beaud from the Fondation Cartier, who liked my work. She offered me a major exhibition at the Louvre, which made me known as an artist. But I never had a good dealer.

Yves Derai: Figurative art wasn't in vogue in the 1990s and 2000s...

T.L.: No. Even Bono, who painted, was unwelcome in the art world. I'll never get out of it, but I've gotten used to it.

Yves Derai: Why did you choose the theme of the sky for your book?

T.L.: I started painting skies in the 2010s in Niger, during the Tuareg revolution. I had managed to sneak into the army and, during a bivouac, I couldn't sleep because I was cold. I looked at the sky for a long time and saw the Big Dipper, vertically. It was the first time I had ever seen it! In the distance, there was a machine gun truck crisscrossing the hill. This incredible sight made me want to draw skies. When I returned from that three-year trip, I went to the National Center for Space Studies (CNES) to see their collection of photos of the sky. I met the director, who explained something to me that made a big impression: we live in a thin film that surrounds the Earth's surface, like the varnish on a billiard ball. For 4 billion years, this is where life has evolved. The width of this film is measured in a few kilometers. I had never thought of it that way. I was talking about the abyssal depths of the ocean, when the sea is 3,000 meters deep on average. And above that, the habitable part of the atmosphere is less than 5 km! 5 km is an hour's walk...

Yves Derai: It is disturbing, indeed, to see things that way.

T.L.: Yes, and we are destroying this thin film. Even though we have searched the entire universe, we have found nothing else like it. Some scientists call it the critical zone. Mars, for example, is too far from the Sun. We are at the right distance, and this phenomenon may be unique. It has given rise to an incredible abundance of species, which is an infinite source of inspiration for an artist.

An article written by Yves Derai, featured in issue 9 of OniriQ magazine.