Studio Conversations

Christine Safa (b. 1994) spoke with Suzan Frecon (b. 1941), whose work has had a strong influence on her since her early years at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Frecon's work has led Safa toward abstraction despite the recent omnipresence of figurative painting. Together, they discussed the presence of the colors in pre-Renaissance and Minoan architecture, the weight of pigments and the effects they produce on the canvas, geometry, questions of scale and the shape of icons—but also shapes that ultimately take on their own reality once they have been painted: unresolved painting states that take us back to an elemental sense of form.

Nino Kapanadze (b. 1990) met Mamma Andersson (b. 1962) in Paris, when she was working on a series of engravings in a studio near Place de la République (Atelier René Tazé). Originally from Georgia, Kapanadze had long admired Andersson’s work without knowing that the Swedish artist had taken an interest in the little-known Georgian painter Niko Pirosmani, or that she had written a text about his use of black backgrounds. Both have long been passionate about the experience of frescoes, particularly those by Giotto in the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua; the contrasts of light and bursts of color on the canvases of El Greco; and the humble paintings in Romanesque churches. Following their initial conversation, in preparation Studio Conversations, each of them painted works inspired by natural landscapes and simple forms, creating an astonishing echo effect both formal and spiritual.

Jean Claracq (b. 1991), who has been in residence in New York since the beginning of 2025, visited Marcel Dzama (b. 1974) in his Brooklyn studio. The two artists talked about music, Polaroid photography, surfing, and the light produced by the full moon. As the conversation progressed, Claracq and Dzama created works on paper collaboratively, blending their worlds in a kind of game. To experiment with new forms, Claracq moved away from the main lines of his explorations, medieval references and pictorial variations on the light of computer and telephone screens. Dzama, whose work extends from drawing and painting to sculpture and stage design, also presents a series of works on paper in which costumed characters explore our gestures and emotions, penetrating into our subconscious.