In conversation with Pascal Duval

Hey Pascal, how are you? What have you been up to lately?

At this moment all my focus is on finishing my solo show 'Once Upon a Time Called Now' which opens at the gallery end of the month. During this process I'm also trying to find a new way of working, how I paint, how I approach the canvas. Next to that I'm trying to rebalance work and life. I have always been racing and never really took the time to smell the roses, as they say. At the same time I'm looking ahead for new opportunities to show my work, expand my creative horizon, and see what comes next.

There always seems to be a connecting thread running through your work, not so much a fixed theme, but more a way of gathering and connecting things. How do ideas find their way to you, and where does a new body of work usually begin?

I have always been drawing. Just letting my imagination run free. At some point the drawing and painting became an outlet, a release. Now, being older, I like the idea of sharing moments, thoughts, emotions with others. Like little stories people can escape into.

Over time I've surrounded myself with fragments: words, images, doodles, a found photograph in a sixties magazine, a brilliant live performance, a song lyric. I love that feeling of serendipity, connecting things that don't necessarily make sense and leaving space for the audience to tap into. These things float around somewhere in my head and sometimes surface and kick-start something bigger. I try to stay open enough to let new ideas wander in and expand it.

I have always seen you as someone with an overflowing bowl of references, music, culture, fashion. It feels like that accumulation is always somewhere behind what you make. Do you see it that way, or does every show have a specific entry point, something you saw or heard that set things in motion?

In a sense both are true. My previous shows were more like a curation, individual pieces brought together at the end, not necessarily made from the same thought. We even did that partly together in the gallery. This time I used one visual hook: the group and interpreted that in various ways.

The ideas still arrive as before, maybe they were already there, or I just stumbled into something that fascinated me. This time I took longer to research, think, and self-reflect. I feel this show is touching the surface of something bigger, something I can dive much deeper into.

How do you think subcultures or tribes like skateboarding, punk, hip-hop and music in general have shaped you as a person, and also your art and way of working?

I think all of these have something punk in them, and I guess that was always the attraction. They gave me a sense of belonging, and to this day they visually inspire me. But connected to the concept of this show, these groups, subcultures, tribes, they also always felt slightly out of reach. Something I couldn’t be fully part of. I had the right deck, the right wheels, listened to the right music, could do the tricks but I wasn’t living in New York. Our inspiration came from a monthly magazine that arrived at the local kiosk a month late, and we watched the same VHS tape over and over until it ran out of colour. We were part of it, inside it, and at the same time outsiders looking in. And I liked that. Being a sponge. Using our imagination to recreate that world with the means we had in front of us.

It’s completely different now, you can immerse yourself in anything 24/7. Music is the best thread connecting all of it for me. It feels boundless. You can mix and match across everything. And it’s closest to how my mind actually works, shifting from something sad to something euphoric, from classical to hardcore, from sensual to violent. I’ve always said: I see myself as a chameleon. Try to make the room you’re in your own.

In a city like Amsterdam, it feels like all these impulses are always close by, museums, bars, stores. Do you need to be in a busy city to create, or do you ever dream of being somewhere far removed from all of that?

Amsterdam is pretty easy-going compared to, say, London where I lived for five years, or the cities I passed through on advertising trips. When you come back you realise Amsterdam is nothing like a metropolis, it feels more like a village. Which I think is its beauty and its strength. The area I live in emphasises that: I can walk to my studio around the corner, to the market for vegetables and cheese, my neighbours have become close friends, and the kickboxing gym is just down the street.

At the same time I can be in the city, having a drink or a gorgeous dinner, and be part of the buzz. And yes, that buzz does influence the work. I love the energy of a city but I can equally imagine living in a house in the Piedmontese countryside, deep in the forest, and occasionally sticking my head into a city to catch that buzz and expand the pond.

You worked in advertising for a long time, and I believe you once said that what you love about painting is being your own boss, the only one to decide whether a piece of work is finished or good. Does that solitude feel like freedom, or does it sometimes feel like its own kind of pressure?

In an agency or working directly for a brand you deal with briefs, multiple opinions, deadlines, you have a team around you. Being a solo artist is a completely different game. You are all of those things at once. And most of what you learn in advertising you have to actively unlearn to live that artist life. You're trained to think like your audience, to create stories that sell something else. Or you have a client who just wants to stay safe, whose feedback can take the soul out of an idea, or who can be completely happy with something bad.

In the studio you are the audience, the client, the creative, the director, and the receptionist. You have to filter all of that, believe in your own ideas, and not be afraid to fail. The solitude is priceless and at the same time a strange kind of freedom. You can shift from “what the hell am I doing here?” to “these tweaks I just made are the best thing I’ve ever done” and come back the next morning to find you’ve ruined it. I’m still learning and unlearning every day. And maybe that’s the beauty of it.

For this show you seem to have taken more time before you actually started painting. Was it necessary to spend longer in the conceptual phase?

My mind was so overloaded with things that were distracting me from painting, maybe even from creativity completely, that I had to sit with it first before doing anything with it. I still like to keep a pace but that pace now comes more at the end, it has more of a build-up compared to earlier shows where I had short bursts of production spread over a longer period, with many moments breaking up the flow.

This time I stayed a bit longer inside my own head, playing around with ideas before bringing them to life. It feels good, even though I’m still in the middle of the process. I’m curious to see where the last weeks take me. The other thing is that I wanted to work with a concept or identity I could live with for longer. Not just this show but something that could feed my brain for a few to come, something I can keep expanding and evolving.

Music has always played a huge role in your life and in your art. You always make a playlist for every show, can you tell us a bit about the one that accompanies this new body of work?

Music is important, not only for my art practice but for everyday life. I like to move to it, dance to it, sit with it, work out to it, paint to it. Sometimes a song takes you somewhere serendipitously and sometimes you need it to break away from something. You are listening to Fugazi and you understand you need to switch to Beethoven. Change the flow, change the room you are in. It is often a good test to see if you can find the emotion you want to convey back in songs, and whether those songs fit the work or the other way around.

It is an ever-evolving list. Right now it is long but when we near the show it will be shorter and more concise. I tried to find music that was new to me. So instead of fishing in my own pond I started looking elsewhere and came back to my familiar music later, to see what still fits. A good example is Reclamation of the Minotaur by Aimee L. Nash, a track used by Ann Demeulemeester for her Spring Summer 26 show. It is deep, heavy, dragging and somehow energising at the same time. I would not have found it on my own but it opened a door into other musical expressions and also creates the opportunity to place it next to tracks I know well, giving those a completely new perspective.

Sometimes I pick songs that lyrically fit my work but this time I wanted to see and feel what happens if it is more atmospheric. Maybe even changing the perspective, taking you on a bit of a journey into the work, letting you fantasise a little longer.

Step into the mood of 'Once Upon a Time Called Now' with a playlist curated by Pascal Duval.

The philosopher Erving Goffman argued that we are always performing a version of ourselves for our audience, that there is no single "true self", only different performances for different groups. Do you agree, or is there a core Pascal that stays constant regardless of who's in the room?

This is actually where the thought process for this body of work started. With me. Me feeling like an outsider. Me feeling like an imposter in almost everything I do. Walking into a room full of hip-hop heads or advertising people, punching a bag at the gym, approaching a table surrounded by new faces. All of these moments are shaped by the group that is already there. I remember moments of trying to fit in, to escape that imposter feeling, and acting so erratically in the process that you make the situation worse. You can flip from shy to arrogant in a split second without noticing.

I do believe we as humans need to be part of something bigger, and I agree that we play a version of ourselves for different audiences. Like being in Paris for a few days and suddenly speaking English with a French accent. Why? But even when we try to hide it, the true self tends to surface without you knowing. And when it does, that is often the moment you actually become part of the group. Because you become interesting.

Looking back at the groups that shaped you, skate crews, music scenes, creative circles, which one do you feel most nostalgic for? And is there one you wished you had been part of, that ended just before you arrived or existed somewhere you couldn't quite access?

It has to be skate culture, even though all the other movements and tribes have had their influence. Maybe it was just a coming-of-age thing but I have very vivid memories of moments where a skateboard was involved, with friends who are still dear to me. I studied fashion and graduated as a fashion designer, and soon after, almost by accident or luck depending on how you look at it, I ended up in advertising. But I could easily imagine being closer to fashion, if you can consider that a group. I still try to keep up with what is going on but definitely from the sidelines.

A few weeks ago I was in Antwerp with friends and we visited the Ann Demeulemeester store, and I really appreciated how she never derailed, how she stuck to her core. Everything from doorknob to clothes hanger, from jeans to shoes, from the soundtrack to the scent, everything belongs to that world, to her room. It is intensely individual but at the same time something you can belong to. I think I never fully understood the power of fashion until I had already left that path.

'Once Upon a Time Called Now' is a title that holds two things at once, nostalgia and urgency, distance and presence. Where did it come from?

First of all, it is a song title. I just stumbled into it while working on the show. Once Upon a Time Called Now is a line from the 1975 funk track P-Funk (Wants to Get Funked Up) by Parliament. To me it captured exactly the energy I was in, being somewhat nostalgic but at the same time very much occupied with the present. It’s the things, the situations, the groups I have been part of that made me who I am now and who I will be tomorrow. And the groups I have painted are not necessarily groups I was part of, but they have been part of the past and have influenced our present, in a good way or a bad way.