Nathan Bertet, like Lucas Talbotier, is a painter. The two men met in 2015 at the Beaux-Arts in the studio of James Reilly, which Nathan, slightly younger, joined a few years after Lucas. They became friends and have remained so, each providing the other with an external and supportive perspective on their works in progress, as well as reflections on the shared concern that drives them: how to paint.
On September 10, 2024, Nathan visited Lucas in his studio in Montrouge, and, at Lucas' request, recorded and transcribed their conversation, which has been edited and reproduced below.
(Nathan has been there for about ten minutes, helping Lucas move finished canvases to set them aside a month before the exhibition – and Lucas catches the look he gives to a detail on one of them.)
LUCAS:
Did you see that spot, down there?
NATHAN:
The white one?
LUCAS:
Yes, does it bother you?
NATHAN:
No… But that white on yellow, it’s like the blue that ran onto your branch earlier, on the other canvas we talked about, the one you said you wanted to touch up. Does your painting need to be retouched, something you have to revisit multiple times? It bothers you, but well, you’re not painting a Courbet… then again, I don’t know if a Courbet ever gets retouched.
LUCAS:
Courbet’s probably not the best example, in my opinion. There are things you don’t tolerate and others you accept in your paintings. It’s a matter of tolerance: everyone has their own language.
NATHAN:
So why did you make that white spot? What were you going for?
LUCAS:
I originally made them everywhere. Then, I painted them all over in yellow because I thought there was white in the hydrangeas, but in the end, it wasn’t that kind of white…
NATHAN:
But this one, you left?
LUCAS:
Yes, I left it… I need to leave a trace of what I was trying to do. At one point, I thought there was white on those hydrangeas.
NATHAN:
There’s still white, under the yellow. There’s definitely white, but it’s not in big patches like you painted it. It would be more streaked, with many little lines.
LUCAS:
It should have been diffused.
NATHAN:
Does it really need to be touched up, though? Like these colors on the left, on the reserve, they belong in the painting!
LUCAS:
I’ve accepted these colors. They echo the stems of the hydrangeas.
NATHAN:
I think, for now, this one’s my favorite.
LUCAS:
We’ll see… It’s your favorite before you see the exhibition; that might change afterward.
NATHAN:
At your last exhibition, my favorite was the untitled one (Untitled, 2022). Thinking back on it now, it’s still my favorite.
(Lucas counts the paintings to be exhibited. They’re almost all arranged on the wall.)
Are you counting? This other painting reminds me of one I’ve seen before, or maybe you’ve shown it to me. For some reason, it brings to mind a Barnett Newman piece, just before the first “zips,” with a palm tree.
LUCAS:
True. I didn’t think of Newman when I painted this, but Ilse D’Hollander, whom I was thinking of a lot, must have seen his work.
NATHAN:
I dreamed of it!
And the subject of your painting – olive trees or grasses, maybe?
LUCAS:
No, it’s not that, it’s not really figurative. It’s more the idea of a tree, and the idea of its leaves. It doesn’t echo a specific species, at least not in this one. Here, however, these are definitely birches.
NATHAN:
I saw some beautiful ones on the way here.
LUCAS:
Birches are beautiful.
NATHAN:
They’d already lost all their leaves. They were huge, well-grouped, with wide, white branches. The sun was hitting them… it was quite something. And what about the watercolors, how are they meant to be viewed?
LUCAS:
That one, in portrait mode. I have others here if you want to see them.
NATHAN:
This one, this is the one.
LUCAS:
Yes, I’ve done that motif many times on paper.
NATHAN:
And this one, is it the same canvas?
LUCAS:
No, I haven’t done that one in watercolor. I’d like to.
NATHAN:
They would look good displayed together… And this one, is it the “wall” piece you were working on when I arrived?
LUCAS:
Yes, but from a much closer perspective.
[…]
And here, what do you think this little gray spot at the top is?
NATHAN:
I don’t know.
LUCAS:
It’s Mont-Saint-Michel! It was a beautiful moment. We were there, we painted for three hours with Diane and her mother. At sunset, it was truly magnificent…
NATHAN:
(Laughs) You shouldn’t have told me it was Mont-Saint-Michel because I still can’t see it at all! But it’s very beautiful.
LUCAS:
Maybe that’s the point. And what about this one, does it look familiar?
NATHAN:
No. Do I know it?
LUCAS:
Isn’t it a place near your home? … It doesn’t remind you of a walk there?
NATHAN:
Well, maybe!
LUCAS:
When we were under the weeping willow on the way to the lake? You don’t remember?
NATHAN:
Yes, yes, but I’m trying to see the willow. The white at the bottom, is that the lake?
LUCAS:
No, it’s the path.
NATHAN:
Was it that time, just the two of us, in the rain, with the dog?
LUCAS:
Yes, it’s just memory, only what I remember. I didn’t take any photos that day.
NATHAN:
Can I give you some advice?
LUCAS:
Of course.
NATHAN:
Weeping willows, their wood turns yellow at the branch tips. It’s a bright yellow, almost like cadmium. You notice it more when they lose their leaves.
LUCAS:
I don’t remember that at all. I’ll think about it…
NATHAN:
And what about the faces?
LUCAS:
Diane’s and her sister’s?
NATHAN:
Yes, and also the one of you and Diane… What happened? (It’s the first time I’ve seen you paint faces!)
LUCAS:
I needed to paint them… Diane… Diane and her sister, when we were at the hospital. I wanted to capture those moments, those moments of grace.
NATHAN:
Does it make you want to do more…
LUCAS:
I think so. I’d like to do a series of swimmers. To paint Diane in the pool or Diane and her mother in the water at Saint-Pair. There are so many things I want to paint now; I mostly want to feel free, to paint what I want. Not to be afraid. These are moments I love. For a long time, I stopped myself from painting them. Now, I know I can do it the same way I paint landscapes, with a different aim than just being objective. You see, it doesn’t matter if the hair is too long or there’s way too much of it. There are plenty of absurd things, but I love the idea of seeing this painting, of having painted it; it’s what I remember from that scene.
NATHAN:
There are truly beautiful things appearing on the canvas.
LUCAS:
Exactly, I’m glad these things are happening… to lift this painting out of the context in which it was experienced. Glad too that it can echo the one that’s a view from the bedroom window. I like that there’s both the inside and outside of this place where Diane and I spent so much time. It allows us to remember that moment differently, less burdened, to lift it out of the illness. Being together was beautiful. It’s something worth painting.
NATHAN:
I feel like the only thing really painted is Diane’s cheek. I mean, the rest is paint… but it’s more relaxed. What I mean is, it’s not the space you wanted to paint, nor the clothes. At one point, you considered it, but then you decided it would just be her face.
LUCAS:
Yes. Her sister’s face was placed immediately. It hardly changed. Diane’s went through many stages.
NATHAN:
I remember we talked about this at the beginning of the canvas.
LUCAS:
It’s much harder to paint Diane than her sister.
NATHAN:
Diane must be hard to paint.
LUCAS:
Extremely hard. In the other portrait I’m doing of her, it’s her lips that I can’t quite capture
.
NATHAN:
Her cheek, that bit of white on the skin tone, it’s really well done… In the end, this one’s my favorite. Just for that cheek. I also like the others. I feel like the landscapes are as beautiful as the best ones from your previous exhibition.
LUCAS:
For me, painting landscapes doesn’t push me out of my comfort zone too much. It’s less difficult for me to paint nature than it is to paint Diane. You could say that painting birch trees is less risky than painting the person I love or her sister. Her sister will be coming to the exhibition; she’ll see herself, she’ll look at it. Her parents will be there, too... you see what I mean?
NATHAN:
With this one, do you feel like you’re taking risks?
LUCAS:
Yes, more than with the trees.
NATHAN:
Even trees, if we go back... When you were at Atelier Marceau, it was risky back then too. Even at art school, if you’d painted that, we’d have had a good laugh that same night.
LUCAS:
Not anymore. I’m not the same painter, not the same person. That was almost ten years ago.
NATHAN:
What I’m getting at is that these are strong paintings. They feel less risky to you now, but don’t forget that a year ago, they weren’t. You’ve digested them, but that doesn’t mean you don’t struggle to make them, or that you don’t get enjoyment from it.
When you look at this one, there’s a lot in common with your older paintings. But it’s different. There are so many things in the texture that come from the watercolors you started making more recently.
LUCAS:
Absolutely, it comes from watercolor. I did a lot of it before; watercolor has helped me, definitely. I’m really happy to do it! Now, I’m just not sure how to hang them.
NATHAN:
I’d put them next to the paintings, not grouped in one corner. With this one, for example (Le jardin de Saint-Pair-sur-Mer, 2024), you could display a watercolor alongside.
LUCAS:
There won’t be one on that subject.
NATHAN:
That’s okay, it still provides hints… I think you have enough paintings; there’s no need to stress.
LUCAS:
I’d like to finish the one of Diane and me, too—what do you think?
NATHAN:
Will you have access to the entire space where you painted during the residency for your exhibition?
LUCAS:
Yes, just with fewer picture rails. Will you help me hang it on the wall to see?
NATHAN:
Is it the same size as the other portrait?
LUCAS:
It’s actually a few centimeters shorter.
NATHAN:
A square.
LUCAS:
A fake square.
NATHAN:
That’s love right there!... So it’s not finished yet? Any parts that are done?
LUCAS:
I painted it all morning. Look, at the spots where the paint dripped. I did the hair, there’s too much of it. I need to erase some here, go over this bit, there’s a problem with the chin, and I worked on the mouth.
NATHAN:
I’m a little unsure about the flower.
LUCAS:
Yes, the flower isn’t right.
NATHAN:
Because what’s so beautiful about a poppy is that the petal is sheer; it looks like paper.
LUCAS:
True, but it’s not a poppy. It’s a tulip. And it’s in the garden, at your place.
NATHAN:
Oh yes! It’s one of the tulips I picked for our engagement night!
And at the bottom, that’s our yellow tablecloth. So if it’s a tulip, that changes everything… but it’s still not the right shade of red.
LUCAS:
No, I haven’t found it yet.
NATHAN:
Maybe this is silly, but I’d have used blue, indigo. Like you, I might have started with orange, but now I see it’s not quite the right choice.
LUCAS:
Yes, it’s not right. I should have gone with carmine and layered it with orange afterward.
NATHAN:
I’d have moved away from red. Because the texture of a tulip makes the petal almost milky. But now, add a light layer of indigo, come to the red through violet, almost like the top of Diane, just a bit lighter.
LUCAS:
It’s tough.
NATHAN:
Then, keep an orange line for depth, to give the petal that internal presence; it could be very beautiful. In the end, the orange isn’t a mistake. There are no mistakes anyway.
LUCAS:
No, there’s just work.
NATHAN:
That could be a great exhibition title! By the way, have you picked one?
LUCAS:
Yes. Auprès de toi. What do you think? It works?
NATHAN:
Yes, it’s good.
LUCAS:
It’s honest, right? Because it’s about Diane, the landscapes, the trees. About Ilse D’Hollander, about so many things.
NATHAN:
But it’s mostly about Diane, isn’t it? That’s what matters.
LUCAS:
Yes, it’s very much about Diane.
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