Thomas’ Way of Bottling the Passing Moment
‘What matters is that these moments keep returning, changing, and finding new forms.‘
-What is the story behind your work in animation? What pushed you from normal art to animation that you now make hauntingly beautiful work?
I initially discovered animation while studying at the École nationale supérieure des Arts Décoratifs (ENSAD) in Paris, from which I graduated in 2012. It wasn’t a technical animation school; the teaching was much more focused on personal expression and an author-driven approach.
We had the opportunity to experiment with many different techniques // paper cut-outs, oil painting, volume animation, pixilation, and both traditional and digital frame-by-frame drawing. This freedom allowed me to understand animation as a language rather than simply a craft.
My fascination with animation is also connected to a deep frustration: I don’t play music, despite being completely obsessed with it. I’m a true music addict // especially electronic, ambient and experimental sounds, mixing foley textures with hard rhythms. Animation became the closest thing to composing music. Through moving lines, colours, forms, shadows and layers, I can create a sense of rhythm and musicality.
I’m also deeply obsessed with loops. For me, loops have the same hypnotic and repetitive qualities as electronic music. They create a space where time almost dissolves.
I used to draw constantly in sketchbooks, and this daily habit still forms the basis of my work. My animations often begin as notes about tiny, seemingly insignificant things. I believe these small observations are our truest mirror, and perhaps that’s where the haunting quality of my work comes from.
– When you examine your work, do you make art as a result of the absence of a certain feeling/emotion or the lack of it? (It can be anything at all)
I think it comes from a fear of losing things rather than from the absence of a specific emotion. Maybe the closest feeling would be the fear of forgetting.
I’m strangely attached to ordinary moments. I love being on trains and experiencing that feeling of being a passenger: looking through the window, listening to music, reading a book, simply being on a journey during a completely casual day. What fascinates me is how the same route can become something entirely different depending on what surrounds it. A journey I used to make as a student can suddenly become associated with a funeral, a date, or a completely different chapter of life. The tracks remain the same, but the emotions attached to them keep changing.
Because of that, I often feel the need to sketch or animate as a way of checking in with a particular feeling while it is still passing through the present moment. It’s almost like trying to preserve something fragile before it disappears.
So perhaps my greatest fear is missing or forgetting these moments. Drawing, and animation more generally, are ways of keeping them alive and describing what I find precious in everyday life. They allow me to pay attention to those small doorways hidden inside daily routines.
-Do you think you can really capture those moments, almost bottle them up in time or is that close to impossible to truly achieve, as much as you try?
Each moment feels achievable as long as it keeps repeating, always in a different way. After decades of making these notes, I’ve come to realize that it’s an endless canvas and also a good way to experiment with.
Sometimes what I make is very close to reality, and I need observational drawing to begin or complete something. Other times, it’s only a mood, with no references at all. The image of the bottle in your question is especially meaningful to me, because most of the time I simply drop it and don’t really know where it goes, or whether someone else might catch it and discover something in it.
What matters is that these moments keep returning, changing, and finding new forms.
What is it about eyes that make them so prominent in your work? Whether a character you have created has eyes or not, they are still noticeable. Why do you think that is from a creator’s perspective?
Like many things in my work, it started from a visual instinct rather than a symbolic intention. In the beginning, I almost always drew a single eye, placed vertically. I wasn’t consciously trying to communicate a specific meaning /// I was simply searching for a graphic language that felt right to me.
Looking back, I think that choice probably reveals something about my practice. A single vertical eye can suggest introspection, but it also creates a strange relationship with the viewer. It feels as though the drawing is looking back, scanning or questioning the person observing it, which introduces a subtle sense of unease or awareness.
The vertical format of the eye also echoes the proportions of the smartphone screen, which has become an essential tool in my process. Most of my work is created in augmented reality, where animation exists in dialogue with a physical paper surface and is activated through a mobile phone. In that sense, the eye becomes a bridge between the tangible and the digital. It naturally fits this vertical interface while also reinforcing the idea of perception // of seeing, being seen, and revealing another layer of reality.
-Do you think there is a part of you that wants people to reflect on their own self when they come across your work? That the feeling of being watched can prompt them to sort of adjust their posture in a way?
I always hope that people will find something that resonates with them when they look at my work // first of all on an aesthetic level. I like the idea that an image can create a visual echo with someone’s everyday experience.
Sometimes people’s interpretations are very close to what I had in mind, and sometimes they are much further away. I actually enjoy that. I like the idea that someone can build their own narrative from a sequence of images or animations, rather than simply reading the one I intended.
In some cases, I even hope that people become more intrigued by the way the images are constructed than by a specific or explicit narrative. The process itself, the system behind the work, often interests me as much as the final images.
I’ve had opportunities to create visual work for exhibitions and live performances combining music and animation. Whenever I get the chance to meet people afterwards, I really enjoy discussing the making of the work, the methods, the constraints, and the creative rules that shaped it. Those aspects often end up being even more meaningful to me than the subject itself.
So I don’t know if I consciously want viewers to reflect on themselves in the way you describe. But I do hope the work creates enough space for them to bring something of themselves into it.
– Are there any artists that have influenced your work as an artist, whether now or in the past?
As for influences, the first person I always mention is my partner, Julie Stephen Chheng. She is an illustrator, designer, and artist, and we’ve been living and working together for many years. Julie has a very conceptual and colourful universe, and together we create augmented reality exhibitions that travel internationally. She introduced me to the dialogue between paper and digital media, which has become central to my own practice. Her approach to producing and distributing work has also shown me that it’s possible to remain independent, creating and sharing our projects without relying on a production structure above us. Being able to work alongside her and grow together as artists is a real privilege.
When it comes to animation, one of my earliest and strongest influences is La Linea by Osvaldo Cavandoli. I discovered it as a child, and I still admire how such a simple concept can generate endless possibilities while speaking to audiences of all ages through the short animation format.
I also deeply admire the tactile, painterly films of Gianluigi Toccafondo, the hypnotic animated loops of Georges Schwizgebel, and the multimedia work of Motomichi Nakamura. Another artist I often think about is Jorge Colombo, whose finger drawings made on a smartphone for The New Yorker completely changed my perception of what a digital drawing tool could be.
More recently, social media has become an unexpected source of inspiration. It’s fascinating to discover artists from all over the world. I particularly enjoy the monotypes of Hashimoto Naotsugu, as well as the joyful animated loops of Nata Metlukh and Kelly Emmrich.
Finally, music is an essential part of my creative process. I almost always work while listening to ambient and electronic music. Artists such as William Basinski, KMRU, Boards of Canada, and Alva Noto regularly accompany my gestures while I draw and animate. Their music helps me find a rhythm and a state of concentration that becomes part of the work itself.
