"My Precious"

The leopard is the only great cat that hoists its prey into trees. A behaviour that is equal parts genius and obsession — to keep for oneself, safe from hyenas and lions, what one has spent hours hunting. Watching this scene, the title imposed itself naturally: Mon Précieux. Not as a joke — as a truth.

In the savanna, the leopard is an exception: solitary where lions live in prides, discreet where cheetahs run in the open. This individuality extends to its way of hunting — and of keeping. What it conquers belongs entirely to it, without sharing or concession. Mon Précieux is also a portrait of character: that of an animal that has never learned to share.

For the composition, I chose a low angle: we look upward, as though standing at the foot of the tree. The leopard dominates the frame, suspended between sky and earth, its prey hanging in the void. This verticality was essential — it speaks of ascent, of effort, and of that way the leopard has of placing its quarry out of reach of the world.

The light filtered through the foliage creates a play of golden spots on the dappled coat — two patterns that echo and almost merge with each other. Oil paint, in its capacity to graduate values with infinite precision, is the ideal tool for seizing this chromatic complexity: the beige, the ochre, the black of the rosettes, and that African light that traverses everything.