Eric DERKENNE

It is the circles that hold the whole composition together, with a nose and sometimes arms drifting around them. As the creation progressed, the need to fill the whole sheet grew. At La S Grand Atelier, where he was active, the facilitators offered him a variety of techniques. He tried them out and then made a deliberate choice: to use the ballpoint pen exclusively. For fifteen years, Éric Derkenne worked alone on the same table at the back of the studio but, towards the end, he finally agreed to use walnut stain, ecoline (liquid paint for watercolours) or Indian ink to add colour and substance to his ‘face works’.