The Story Behind My ‘Inner Cities’ Series
Cities are living contradictions. They pulse with energy and ambition, yet often move too fast to truly see the people within them. Inner Cities is a series that explores this complexity, the emotional tension of city life, the choreography of avoidance, and the flickers of resilience that break through concrete monotony.
As a French artist working in contemporary art, I’ve always been drawn to environments that reflect human contradiction. Cities are that, in their rawest form. They are vibrant and isolating. Chaotic and poetic. Indifferent and inspiring.
The Psychological Pulse of Urban Life
Inner Cities is not a literal depiction of architecture or geography. It is a body of work rooted in psychological art, shaped by the emotional undertow of city life. In this series, I use distortion, fragmentation, and layering to reflect the emotional rhythms of urban spaces, the inner experience of those moving through the crowd unseen.
These works are built from observation and memory. They ask what it means to belong in a place where millions coexist without connection. In the city, we learn to look without absorbing, to pass without stopping. That tension of closeness without intimacy is the heartbeat of this series.
From Surface to Story: Materials and Method
As an expressionist artist, I work instinctively and emotionally. My paintings are layered with oil, pencil, and newspaper is a mixed media art process that mimics the surface noise of the city. The textures mirror graffiti, flyers, torn posters. They represent both communication and disintegration. The figures that emerge are not characters, but reflections of the city’s emotional residue.
Street performers, subway musicians, and muralists appear throughout the series, symbols of defiance and hope in the face of anonymity. Their presence breaks the rhythm of indifference. They remind us that art lives even in overlooked corners.
Emotional Art, Not Social Commentary
Inner Cities is not intended as a critique. It is an invitation to notice. This is emotional art, a visual meditation on resilience, compartmentalization, and the unspoken choreography of life in motion.
There is beauty here. In old parks tucked between high-rises. In murals that both protest and celebrate. In the shared glance between strangers on a crowded platform.
The city shapes us, how we connect, how we protect ourselves, how we carry silence.
Why It Belongs in Contemporary Art
These paintings exist within the framework of contemporary art, but draw from my own lived experiences of city life, as a resident, an observer, and a participant. They are not political, but they are human.
As a contemporary expressionist artist, I believe the city is more than a setting. It is a mirror. And what it reflects depends on how willing we are to look.