“I am happy to do it.” in the video, a private visit to artist Mathilde Denise’s studio, near Saint-Ouen lou market.

Right next to the Saint-Ouen flea market, the young artist cuts, collects, sculpts and paints. Between two altars full of old-fashioned charms, expect the unfinished frescoes you’d expect in Hong Kong or Dallas. Ghosts or fossils, their pale “figures” live their aquatic life there, unrecognizable.

How long have you occupied this space?
Since I returned from “Villa Medici” two and a half years ago. I used to share a workshop in Saint-Denis, I had less space, but then I made small, fragile pieces. I hadn’t painted since studying at the Beaux-Arts, I couldn’t seem natural in front of a canvas. And then in Rome I had a click.

Do you come there every day? Do you have a ritual?
My office hours are 8:30am to 6:30pm. I love this sacred continuity of practice that is opposed to the hectic flow outside. The workshop allows for a break, a kind of out-of-game. This relationship with everyday life, with a certain economy of means, was the subject of my solo exhibition at Galerie Perrotin in Shanghai. These are days, a title borrowed from a poem by Kay Tempest. A way of saying that the weather is nice. I’m happy to do it.

What are your favorite subjects?
I do not differentiate between home and workshop. Every shelf in my house is busy. Here by my sewing machine are baskets full of scraps of fabric and lots of used items: a pair of walkie-talkies, a photo of the moon, penguins… At one point I was very afraid of flying, and every day before I left I found a penguin figurine. It has become a totem animal.

Art Paris, April 4th to 7th at the temporary Grand Palais in Paris. artparis.com