Cette interview a été réalisée dans le cadre du lancement du site internet. This interview has been created for the website.
Je tiens à remercier Damien Vidéaste pour cette vidéo. I would like to thank Damien Vidéaste for this video.
Can you introduce yourself ?
My name is Emmanuel Piquemal. When I produce, I go by Ma, M-A.
I actually produce paintings and clay pieces, which are actually modeled. Generally, that’s what I do, with a bit of rope and wood too. I produce in a general way, quite intuitively.
I don’t have any aesthetic research, I don’t try to be realistic. The only indicator that tells me if it’s good or not is my feelings. I do it because I feel tense, uncomfortable, uneasy, and when I stop, it’s because I feel good. There’s no research at all into whether it’s going to be beautiful, how it’s going to be perceived.
How did you start creating ?
The first time I started creating, it was a pretty horrible time, because I was under a lot of pressure, I was really compressed, and it was a real outlet for me. I’d been holding myself back from creating for years, and then I really needed it, it was vital.
In hindsight, I realized that two years later, I was going to have a big problem in my personal life, and it was the beginnings, almost a kind of warning for me, that something was seriously wrong.
How does your self-taught career influence your work ?
Well, it definitely does, but in a very simple way. I don’t worry about colors at all. Is it okay or not? I don’t look for complementary colors or an overall balance.
The only thing that guides me is actually my well-being, that is, do I feel bad and need to produce, or do I feel good and need to produce less? When I’m truly at peace inside, once I’ve finished something, it’s done, it’s over.
Because, once again, what matters is my perspective and my feelings. It’s not how others see it; I don’t do this for others; I really do this for myself.
Do you know in advance what you’re going to create ?
Well, I don’t always know. Sometimes, like the sculpture called « Time, » it was truly dazzling. I was watching a documentary, and I saw this image, I didn’t understand where it came from, etc., I didn’t think about it at all.
As soon as we finished the documentary, I got up, went to get the clay, and I modeled it. And it was only afterwards, looking back, that I understood a little bit what it represented for me, and the concerns I had at the time.
It was a flash of inspiration. Then there are other times, it’s things that I see and that make me feel good to draw, like for example, there’s a face that I do all the time, I have absolutely no idea why, but it makes me feel good to draw it, and I know that as long as I continue to do it, it’s because I won’t have arrived at exactly what suits me in relation to this face.
And there are times, I just need to create, so I take my lump of clay, there, and I go, I let it happen, I don’t think, there is a great freedom in what I do.
What materials do you use ? And why ?
The reason is that I mainly gravitate toward inexpensive materials. Obviously, there’s a budget factor. At first, it was mostly paint; I used a little Chinese ink, but the budget quickly became a factor.
And then, clay, I can’t explain it. It came to me once, maybe after seeing my partner working with it, and I thought, « Hey, why not try it? » But there’s no real thought involved, again, there’s no goal. In what I do, it’s very instinctive; I experiment.
And the advantage is that I discovered that clay has a manual aspect, a tactile sensation, something I also really enjoy. And I’m more comfortable modeling things with clay. So, it’s true that it’s perhaps my core business that makes me comfortable with volumes.
But it’s true that there’s also a relationship with the material, which I really like, with the smell, sometimes the taste, because you re-wet everything a little. So, it’s all these mixtures of sensations that make me feel good at the time.
I think that really, my guiding principle, even in relation to the material chosen, is both the budget and the sensations it brings me.
Are there emotions or wounds that you transform into art ?
They’re very often things I experience, and very often the things I experience are the most difficult. In fact, I have this real need when I feel deep pain, and I experience a lot of pain on a daily basis, to get that out. So, I think it shows in many of them, more in the clays than in the paintings.
You can really feel the difficult emotions I’m going through, and that’s what guides me, since, again, I think my work is mostly a story of tension and release. Tension and release. Life stretches me, and I release it by creating these things.
So, why does it soothe me, having materialized it? I have absolutely no idea.
Do you have a work you’ve never wanted to sell ?
I’ve never wanted to sell, not necessarily. However, there is one that will be particularly difficult: « Time, » because it’s the most dazzling.
It’s the one during the documentary. There was such clarity in what came out, and once I sat down, saw it dry, and installed it, it was so obvious because these are still subjects that are extremely preoccupying to me: the notion of time, wasted time, time when there’s no more wind, etc.
So I think that, in relation to the notion of dazzling and all the resonances it leaves in me, is really important.
What are the first reactions when people discover your work?
Generally, it speaks to them, because I embody emotion. So these are inevitably things we’ve all experienced, perhaps not to the same degree or with the same frequency. So, I think, there’s a kind of recognition of what they’ve experienced.
Afterwards, of course, the level of pain I feel in my life is very high. So it can sometimes be shocking to feel that way, because there’s no filter, nothing is sugar-coated in what I do. I create, I don’t think, and that’s it.
So afterward, the reception is sometimes a little difficult, because it’s unfiltered.
What is your view of the world? And how does that show?
I think my worldview is very… We all have our own filters. But at a very young age, I experienced some very violent things.
At 3 years old, a death, around the age of 7 or 8, a very bad relationship. And that broke, I think, something inside me. Which means that now, almost whatever I do, I do a lot of work on myself, but whatever I do, there are things that are broken.
And so, for me, life is something very difficult. It’s painful on a daily basis. It requires a lot of effort to keep going.
And that, I think, is what shows through in what I create. But also, what I create allows me to keep going. So they both self-perpetuate.
I think that’s what both nourishes and shines through in what I create.
What would you like people to feel when they hang one of your works in their home?
Ideally, I’d like them to feel a sense of calm. For me, it’s really, in my life, the quest to escape suffering.
It’s really my thing. It’s the subject of some of my work since 2005. Plus, written or therapeutic works.
And it’s really that there’s a sense of calm. That I felt while creating. That I feel when I see what I’ve produced.
And if the person can feel this calm, perhaps by saying to themselves, « I feel understood. » Or they’ve also experienced this. Or there are things that speak, too, we don’t know why.
But it’s really this feeling. It’s this whole notion of sensation that guides me in my creation. Who guides me in the process, in the moments when I’m immersed in what I produce.
And that’s what I’m looking for too. And if people can benefit from it, that’s great.
Interview conducted in May 2025.
