This set of portraits of Joyce corresponds to my projection into his universe . The more I read his books, the more James Joyce fascinated me. I then followed him from Dublin to Paris, from "Dubliners" to "Ulysses" , from a "Portrait of the Artiste as a Young Man" to "Stephen the Hero", following Richard Ellmann’s biography.

I have wandered through his life, trough his books and I have paid tribute to him with this collection of portraits inspired by many photographs people took of him.

I discovered his work and started living in "Joycean" with a friend, Jean-Pierre Guillou, while I was working on the theme of The Radishes. In my dialectics "radis/paradis", the cruciferous vegetable parodies the great beyond of the crucified: the feet firmly planted on the ground, the soul not in exile but looking out for the Home of the father.

What is the link with Joyce ? Every day domestic life... a vegetable bloom in a way. I enjoyed mixing them in concertinaed designs which I humbly painted after reading Finnegans Wake:the shortening and polysemy of words, the stories turned this way and that... Ulysses in Dublin at number 7 Eccles Street, who is fond of kidneys and who trailed along from pub to pub before he gets back to his half-asleep wife who is weaving her sexuality.

For years we went onthat way, Jean-Pierre and I, especially during our outings in Paris, going from pub to pub, writing the city in our own way? Jean-Pierre passed on and today I am the only remaining witness of the story of the Breton Ulysses gone on a quest for Joycean adventures.

In my paintings I have not tried to illustrate his books but Joyce’s personality: a great mind behind a broad forehead, eyes looking inside, a protruding chin, a self-confident and challenging man... My intention was to make Joyce’s work appear in these portraits. When I read Joyce, I can see him.

François FLOC’H, 8 june 2004.