In trying to build a pictorial space around the sensations of walking through a landscape, I almost always intentionally lose myself.
The work itself becomes a trip with no precise destination, the result a composition with no possible return, no narrative, like an "elsewhere" that's always moving.
Stéphane Villafane trained and worked as an architect and as a result, his primary interest when it comes to painting is space and its relationship to time.
His focus is on how one can formulate different types of space: empty space, constructed space, natural space and meditative space to create fascinating works of art. He considers it vital to empty his paintings of a narrative or a subject.
Stéphane describes his process more as observing things from a distance, which involves working across different media including photos, sketches, and models before he arrives at a painting on a large scale.
Stéphane travelled a lot when he was younger, and was heavily influenced by American literature, particularly the Beat Generation. This influence is reflected in his conceptual approach to painting, concerning himself with the emptiness and absence of travelling on a journey.
His palette is subtle but fresh and full of light, mainly blues, whites, greys and green, which are tranquil and quietly recede as the shifting planes of space come to the fore.
Stéphane lives and works in Palma de Mallorca, Spain.