I’ve only recently begun to call myself a “collector.” And yet, I’ve been gathering works for almost ten years, one by one, through encounters, instances of love at first sight, and exchanges. Even so, speaking of a “collection” still sounds strange to me, as if the term too glibly labels a practice that has been built organically.
What I like about collecting is the idea not just of owning a work but of learning to understand and live with it. There’s truly a simple pleasure in finding, day after day, images, materials, colours that never age and always speak to me. Each acquisition thus becomes an ongoing story: that of a gaze being refined, a space being transformed, and a relationship being deepened. As I have gone down this path, Esse’s Vendu–Sold auction has often been a dependable reference point: a regular get-together, both stimulating and reassuring, that has guided many of my choices.
The annual auction adds a sense of discovery to my pleasure: it introduces me to artists whom I didn’t yet know or had seen only from afar. Looking at the works selected, reading through the descriptions, recognizing an approach, getting a feeling about something new—all of this broadens my awareness and allows surprises to happen.
Even so, sometimes I dream of going back in time, if only for a moment, to pick up works that slid out of reach—ones that I shouldn’t have let slip through my fingers. Maybe that’s also what collecting is: learning to choose, sometimes deciding not to pursue something, and living with the memory of the one that got away.
Image:
Top (left) - Yann Pocreau
Fantasmes colorés (le cerisier)
2022
Vendu–Sold 2024
Top (centre) - Michel Boulanger
Remisage hivernal
2014
Vendu–Sold 2017
Top (right) - Daniel Lahaise
Matrice no 2 pour un homme qui boit
2013
Vendu–Sold 2016
Centre - Alexa Kumiko Hatanaka
Crusher
2023
Vendu–Sold 2024
Centre (left) - Yves Gaucher
Jericho - une allusion à Barnett Newman
1978
Bottom (left) - Mathieu Grenier
Once Again, Before and After (Sol LeWitt’s #821)
2018
Vendu–Sold 2019