In 2020, I was in the Netherlands when, almost overnight, daily life changed. Lockdown began and social distancing became mandatory — the “1.5-meter society.” I started to wonder how we could keep physical distance while still maintaining a sense of connection, bonding, and the longing for intimacy.

This question led me to a series of paintings in which distance itself became a measure — a space filled with imagined excitement: bodily sensations, erotic reverie, emotional tension, and sensory explosions. Through color, line, and expressive brushstrokes, I tried to capture what people might have been feeling beneath the imposed restraint: longing, desire, and the urge for closeness.

During this period I also made works centered on erotic reverie, reflecting my own desire to be with another person. I had an intense, extended online connection with someone I never met face-to-face for over a year. We exchanged thoughts, fantasies, and emotional intimacy, yet it never materialized into reality. Like so many relationships during that strange time, it existed solely in imagination — powerful, fragile, and ultimately fleeting.

Amsterdam itself mirrored this contrast. The streets were empty; I could walk for hours without encountering many people. Only in the Vondelpark did life gather — people meeting, talking, smiling — sharing a form of distant intimacy in open space.

Alongside the larger works, small paintings on cardboard became studies exploring this theme more intimately — quick investigations of emotion, tension, and desire. A parallel project emerged around the idea of balance: the space between two worlds, between imagination and reality, isolation and connection.

This ongoing research into excitement, longing, and erotic reverie continued until mid-2021, when I returned to France and left Amsterdam behind — carrying with me the emotional residue of that suspended time.