Studio Note 01— On Vacances Retrouvées

Summer 2026

For the past few months I've been working on a new series called Vacances Retrouvées.

The project began with a collection of anonymous holiday photographs found at a thrift store. Images that once belonged to someone, but have gradually become detached from their original owners and histories.

Rather than treating them as documents, I've been using them as starting points for works on paper. Some images remain partially recognizable, while others become obscured, altered or reconstructed through paint, shifting the focus away from recognition and towards atmosphere, colour and memory.

What interests me is what happens to a photograph once it loses its owner. Detached from the people who made it, it begins to belong less to history than to memory. By painting into these images I'm not trying to restore their original meaning, but to explore how they can acquire new ones.

Recently I've been making test prints and experimenting with different ways of presenting the work. The project is still evolving, and I'm discovering new possibilities as I go.

Here are a few recent studies from the series.

Until the next note,

Jasper