"Bad Lieutenant"

There is something particular about the old solitary boar. Driven from the groups, retreated into the densest parts of the forest, it has developed an intelligence and a wariness that the young do not yet have. Hunters call it 'la bête noire'. The title imposed itself as I painted: Bad Lieutenant — not the corrupt cop, but the lone cop who acts by his own rules and dispenses his own justice.

The scene takes place in winter, in a forest that does not belong to everyone. The snow is deep, but the boar advances — head high, proud, with that muted and inexorable energy that characterises the animal. An advance that nothing seems able to stop.

The panoramic format embraces the horizontal movement of the animal. The contrast is radical: the dark, massive body against the whiteness of the snow, the forest dissolving into darkness behind it. The snow thrown up by its own paws creates an atmosphere of raw power. I worked the texture of the coat with care — those stiff, dense, almost mineral bristles that make the wild boar so particular.

This painting is an ode to the wild animal in its most radical element: winter, forest, snow. No golden light, no shimmering colours. Just black, white, and that energy that nothing seems able to stop. Bad Lieutenant does not pose for the painting. It passes through.