"JackRabbit"

With 'À toute Berzingue', I had painted the adrenaline of the hare taking flight. With JackRabbit, I wanted the other face — the same animal, but before. Crouching in the freshly cut straw, motionless, certain of its invisibility.

The panoramic format imposed itself naturally: it is the very horizontality of the summer field, the raking line of the hunter's or walker's gaze as it scans the ground. The framing is tight on the head, almost from a gentle bird's-eye angle — we are above it, we have found it, but it feigns not to know.

The entire technical challenge lay there: painting an animal that blends with its background. The ochres of the coat and the golds of the straw play the same register, echoing and blurring each other. The only anchor point, the only place where the painting 'catches', is that amber eye — precise, alive, seeing everything.

There is a form of silent humour in this painting. The hare is convinced it is eluding us. And we are watching it.