MM: Growing up, which artists/types of art interested you?

MV: Concerning the masters: I admire Manet and Sorolla for their light treatment, Bonnard, Matisse for their colours and Lucian Freud for his reality. As you can imagine I am aware of figurative painting especially human figurative painting. Amongst the contemporary artists, Alex Kanevsky’s paintings fascinate me and all the painters who gravitate around those who the artist F. Scott Hess names “Discombobulation” in painting. I admire the force in the paintings of Fabienne Verdier, Yan Pei Ming and so many others.

MM: How would you describe your work and what inspires it?

MV: My work is a testimony of our active lives: the street, individual people and the crowd. Snapshots of our time, details of clothing and marks of our society. People enter the frames as entering onto a stage but are completely anonymous. Their faces are not shown and yet they seem familiar to us. I like to capture an instant moment in time but also the previous and following moment. On my canvas, I strongly fix the grace of a movement, the elegance of a body. Colour is a game. Light appears on the canvas to assume all its place. My motto is “work in progress”.

MM: How did you go about getting into galleries and/or public showcases?

MV: It is always a coincidence. I have never approached anybody but I show my work in exhibitions, artistic events and through social networks. The hasard does the rest. One day a gallery contacts me… and things happen.

MM: Do you have a favorite piece? If so, which one and why?

MV: Perhaps one of my first works. I always forgive its clumsiness but because of it I began to believe in my painting. A figure in a raincoat on a red background. Very often when a canvas comes back to the studio after an exhibition I modify it, or start again. It does not satisfy me anymore. My critical look, my exigence changes very quickly. However, the man in the raincoat remains the same.