LIBERTUS III -

November 2007.  I was living in Mananjary, a town in southeastern Madagascar where every seven years there is a month of "Sambatra", the festival of circumcision. Apart from the traditional side that makes its charm and attracts many people, it is still a huge popular festival and overflows are very common. Most city officials prefer to leave in these moments. For the occasion I held an exhibition at Hotel SORAFA not far from home, organized by the Alliance Française. I had just finished this painting, it was not dry yet and I was really happy. It was different from others, I had managed to integrate in my abstract research a certain form of symbolism linked in principle to figuration.

During the opening, one of my resident compatriots, we were barely a dozen families in the city, bought it for me. Far from rejoicing, it completely depressed me. I would have liked to take the opportunity to deepen this path. But I had a toddler, needed money and I could not say no. I started contracting malaria and then I pulled myself together to finally join the festivities. We do not have the right to demoralize and let go in these countries, on pain of losing their lives.

During one of these following nights that one of my friends got a bit of a zebu mad in the street. Catastrophe! Understand that the level of the hospital is quite close to what was done more than 200 years ago in Europe and that he really had very little chance of getting out of it. Especially since the surgeon had gone on vacation, enclosing all the equipment in his cupboards and that there was not even water at the tap (yes!).

I then remembered that my customer was organizing a banquet that evening at his home where there was one of the most famous surgeons in Reunion Island. He was obviously on vacation but I mustered my courage and went to see them. He agreed to come and we went to the hospital. Fortunately, he had taken some relief supplies in case something happened to his daughter. My friend was on a table, open from the top of the abdomen to the middle of the thigh and the ophthalmologist and a few panicked and idle colleagues tried in vain to save him. As much to say to you that they emitted a great relief when they saw us arrive.

The professor saved my friend.

If I had not painted and sold this painting, maybe things would have been different. Who knows ? In any case, it marked the end of one of the most creative periods of my life as an artist. Because this adventure was far from stimulating me. Depression had become systematic at the following exhibitions and especially during sales. So, a few months later, I stopped painting to become an ice maker and a fish smoker.

Untitled, oil on canvas, 

58,5 x 58,5 et 84 x 40 cm