"Golden Hour"

In a lion pride, it is the females who form the heart of the group. They are the ones who raise the cubs, who organise the hunt, who maintain the bonds. The males orbit around them, absent themselves, return — never very far, but rarely at the centre. The Mayambula Pride, observed in the Timbavati in South Africa, functions like all prides: according to immutable rites passed from generation to generation without being taught.

Drinking in the late afternoon is one of them. That moment marks the transition between two times: the heat falling, the cubs about to start playing, the females who may set out to hunt. Lionesses and cubs side by side, at the same height, in the same light — an ordinary scene of life that, seen close up, has something unforgettable about it.

I positioned myself at their level. This choice determines everything: you enter the scene, you are no longer a spectator. The composition is organised around a horizontal line of gazes — mothers and cubs intermingled, each eye a slightly different colour. The light of the golden hour falls diagonally from the right, sculpting the fur textures in dense contrasts. Working these textures at length, the painting tips almost into abstraction — and yet the scene remains profoundly familiar.

What I wanted to capture is this paradox: something absolutely wild that resembles a family scene. Those eyes looking at you without seeing you, that intimacy you are witness to without being invited. The Golden Hour is perhaps the painting in which I have most felt that boundary between the animal world and something we recognise as our own.