Éteindre (To Extinguish), 2012

Oil on canvas, unstable pigments including natural cinnabar, accelerated ageing protocol
50 × 80 cm
Developed in collaboration with pigment chemist Marie Radepont as part of the ENSAPC Art and Science exchange programme with C2RMF

Éteindre was developed through a collaboration with Marie Radepont, then a doctoral researcher in pigment chemistry and art conservation, within an Art and Science exchange programme between ENSAPC and C2RMF. Using accelerated-ageing protocols derived from her research, I produced an oil painting with unstable pigments, including natural cinnabar, and exposed it to conditions intended to provoke and accelerate its material transformation.

Rather than representing disappearance, the work subjected the painting itself to a process of alteration. Its future appearance was transferred partly to chemical reactions that could be initiated but not fully controlled. The protocol therefore placed the work between production and deterioration, while shifting the artist’s role from preserving an image to deliberately exposing it to instability.

The effects were not sufficiently measured or documented at the time, and Éteindre remains an unfinished experiment. This methodological limit is now part of its significance within my practice: the work introduced questions of ageing, material agency and irreversible transformation that have continued to shape later projects. Its possible reactivation would require a more rigorous collaboration in which observation and documentation become integral parts of the artwork rather than external records of it.

Installation view of Éteindre, showing the oil painting exposed to an accelerated-ageing protocol using an intense light source, 2011