He wanted to be an art history professor at university, but he ultimately became a full-time artist. "I come to the studio every day, without always knowing exactly what I'm going to work on, but it's through the act of creating that things take shape. I start one canvas and then move from one floor to another, working on several pieces at once," explains Cédric Bouteiller enthusiastically. After studying visual arts and philosophy at the University of Aix-en-Provence, he is now represented internationally by the Bel Air Fine Art network, notably in Cannes. In his 600-square-meter studio ⁱⁿ Aix, works on plexiglass emerge, characterized by a rapid and instinctive calligraphic style. These inks, born from his encounter with Zao Wou-Ki, are applied with large Chinese brushes, and he then colors the backgrounds with spray paint. For his Street Collages – Street Tears – the artist gathers advertising posters from the street or collects them, then pastes them one on top of the other, graffitiing and painting them in multiple layers. These are layers of patterns and colors that he tears away, like skins, and which serve as his raw material for creating paintings. "What interests me here is what happens in the tears," continues Cédric Bouteiller. Deeply Nietzschean at heart, and driven by the will and joy of going beyond through art, Cédric had wrapped an old Rolls-Royce belonging to César, at the request of his friend, the sculptor's nephew: "I covered it with stickers, then after the exhibition I tore them off and compressed them to make totems. It's in this spirit that I conceived the COTE Innov trophies."

@cedric_bouteiller