Camille Rouschmeyer, my Impressionist muse

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Camille Rouschmeyer is an impressionist and contemporary painter. She is also my partner, my muse, and a central figure in my journey as an artist. This is a tribute to her presence in my life and in my work.

In almost every one of my paintings, there is a gentle imprint —
a subtle vibration, a familiar curve, a light that doesn’t entirely belong to me.
Her name is Camille.

Camille is my partner, my agent, my mirror — and my muse.
Not in some mythical or distant sense. No.
Camille is here, close, every single day.
She is the gaze that questions with me, the breath that moves through my silences, the voice that tells me:
“It’s almost there. Keep going.”

I sometimes call her “my Monette” — a nod to Monet, of course,
but also because she is, to me, what few muses truly are:
present, inspiring, and a creator in her own right.

She is in my paintings.
In Nue sous le saule (a triptych), she appears standing, in three different postures — bare, present, grounded, and yet bathed in light.
In La fille nue dans son lit, La fille dans les draps bleus, La fille au lever du jour, La fille au bord du lac, she slips from canvas to canvas, from moment to moment.
Always there, never frozen in place.
She doesn’t pose. She inhabits.

Her echo can be found in Lecture interrompue, Intimité, Sa petite robe noire…
Not always in the features or the figure, but in the atmosphere —
in that way of being present without intruding, like a scent that lingers after someone has passed.

Camille is a painter herself.
She works with light the way others work with memory.
Her touch is impressionist — not by imitation, but by instinct.
She sees before naming. She feels before framing.

Where I seek silence, she captures the shiver.
Where I strip things down, she reveals.

We talk a lot. Sometimes too much.
About classical painting, about contemporary gestures.
About Manet, Schiele, Hopper… and above all, Monet.
These conversations are sometimes gentle, sometimes sharp.
We correct each other, we provoke, we sulk.
But always, we return.
Because painting, for both of us, is also a way of speaking without words.

She supports me. She unsettles me.
She reads me like no one else can.

And if I have painted still bodies, maybe it was to hide the fact that the movement came from her.
If I’ve sought silence, it’s because she was already walking through it.

Camille is not just a source of inspiration —
she is the light that runs through my paintings and lets them breathe.