Everything starts with the urge to escape. Happiness is elsewhere.
Amongst all things family is the hardest to detach yourself from, both physically and ideologically. My father is a quite authoritarian figure. There was not much space between what you wanted to do and what you were expected to do. I started painting at a very young age, but followed my family’s path and became an architect. I then discovered that there was only the artistic side of architecture that appealed to me.
I used to paint landscape, but always got frustrated that I couldn’t create anything on my own. After I turned 19, one day, all of a sudden, hundreds of creations just came to my mind. I brought my paintings to my psychotherapist and we ended up studying Jung… I would wake up in the middle of the night and quickly sketched what was in my dream. It was as if you went to the abyss of craziness, picked up a piece of creation, and quickly ran back to the reality. Careful not to remain too long where my subconscious could send me, as suffering and spirituality go hand in hand.
I decided not to limit myself to just painting, and expanded my mediums of expressions to sculpture, photography and jewellery making. In order to search for a new environment, I ended up leaving my family and my home land. Coming to London with my bare hands, I offered to wash cars, to work in Starbuck, in CASS… but no one wanted to take me. They thought that they didn’t need an architect to do this type of work. I finally found a polishing job for a jewellery casting company. There was not much to negotiate in terms of working conditions but I survived. Two years ago, I opened my own studio, where I work on my creations. I have since then built a portfolio of more than 20 clients to whom I offer my bespoken jewellery making services. It was like diving into an ocean of opportunities and skills, from casting to modern techniques. I absolutely fell in love with it, realising how my work could touch people in such a simplistic way.