“I was always interested in the African masks or the masks from other ancient civilizations, and especially fascinated by their “magic” powers on the peoples.

What interests me and surprises me in the everyday life, it is the way for a lot of people to hide their real personalities or their profound feelings, behind a kind of permanent mask. Once this mask was raised or fell by the meetings or the events, there is always a fragile and delicate human being. I paint faces because, for me, there is nothing more expressive as well as the feelings which pass by the glance. As when you look yourself in the mirror, you can take place in the skin of my characters and feel their feelings which I wanted to express. Masks represent a kind of perfection, something divine, of more hardly than my characters. The view of these masks frightens people and impose total respect.

Finally, perhaps when my characters get old and when they have found their own roads in life, their masks are starting to disappear…”

Fabien Delaube: website