With their first London exhibition at Galerie Max Hetzler about to end, and a solo exhibition curated by Eric Troncy at Le Consortium, Dijon, scheduled to open in February 2022, we are delighted to present an interview with Ida Tursic & Wilfried Mille.

When did you start painting?
Ida: We started in the late 1990s, early 2000s. At the time it was quite complicated to work in painting, even more so figurative painting. Having a certain spirit of contradiction, we threw ourselves into it with great pleasure, especially in the very classical categories of painting, such as the nude, landscape and genre painting, still life, and even abstract painting.

Wilfried: As nobody wanted to see painting, we were forced, or rather amused, to do things that “could not be seen”; paintings that jumped out at you. Our subjects were pornography for the nudes and portraits. Then we looked for ways to make landscapes because it was a “stupid idea” to make landscapes 20 years ago, it was...cheesy?

Ida: Yes, old-fashioned.

Do you find your work and inspiration has changed with time?
Wilfried: We have been working empirically for 20 years, and our work has been continuously changing. Every exhibition, every painting creates a new way of looking at the work that is still to come. The painting itself creates its own continuation. It's like a domino, and we are open to all the accidents and contradictions that painting carries within itself and will produce in practice.

The great thing about painting is that you can put it in every possible situation. Painting has such an old history that you can make it in a thousand different shapes. It's fun after all...the little oval painting can evoke intimate 17th century paintings, the large horizontal landscape, bas-reliefs or altarpieces from the Middle Ages.

How do you curate your exhibitions and what are your thought processes when creating them?
Wilfried: Making an exhibition is similar to making a painting. Every time we think about how to arrange the elements to create a sort of visual trap, a strategy of the gaze, like when we make a painting. We necessarily think about the viewer, where he/she arrives, what he/she sees first, or how things are repeated in the space, and whether it is visible or not.

What do you think is important when it comes to creating art?
Wilfried: Playing is very important in the way we work, maybe even how we try to live. Playing is the basis, perhaps, of the work. Painting is like a game. There is joy in painting. It is very important, especially in the work exhibited.

VR View of “Strange Days”, Galerie Max Hetzler, London, 22 June - 7 August 2021

Can you talk a bit about your cut-outs?
Wilfried: We started making the cut-outs in 2015 or 2016. The first was a bichon, a cut-out bichon. We had made a painting with a bichon that was repeated in front of a bichon, and we decided to take one bichon out of the painting and put it in space (Ida: in front of another painting). This way, he was a parasite, he was a bit of a hindrance to reading, in fact he was a bit of a hindrance in space, and on top of that he didn't look very friendly. And the funny thing was that the dog had been in painting forever. The first representations date back to the Paleolithic, where the dog helps man to hunt. In the Middle Ages, it is represented as a hunter. After that, the dog took on another role, that of cultural enhancement; ladies were represented with a very cute little bichon, and the king with a virile dog that showed the strength of the owner. In painting, one also delegates the gaze to the dog. It’s like a character in its own right, through which perhaps a lot of the whole painting goes through. We find it in the work of Bruegel, Titian, and Goya.

How do you choose the titles for your paintings?
Wilfried: The title of the painting gives it its spirit…

Ida: It's as important as the subject, the format, the colour, the way it is made. The title is an element of vocabulary to us.

Wilfried: Sometimes the title is better than the painting! (Chuckles)

Ida: Sometimes everything is in the title, and sometimes not. (Chuckles)

Wilfried: [Often we use] aphorisms, which are sometimes colloquial or personal. The title gives a direction which is … (Ida: a key). Sometimes it's "sausage with abstract painting", sometimes it's more poetic.

This interview was originally published by Galerie Max Hetzler on the occasion of Tursic & Mille's solo exhibition “Advertisement For A Better World” in 2020.

Tursic & Mille’s current exhibition “Strange Days” is at Galerie Max Hetzler, London, until 7 August 2021.

A solo exhibition of Tursic & Mille’s work will be on view at Le Consortium, Dijon, from 4 February to 22 May 2022, curated by Eric Troncy.