For this postcard, I chose to draw inspiration from this summer’s current events: the wildfires threatening France’s forests, particularly those that affected the Gironde region. My intention was to depict nature in the midst of burning, while retaining the traditional elements of a postcard and reinterpreting them. At the center of the composition, I chose to depict a doe in the middle of a forest ablaze, as a symbol of the wildlife directly affected by the fires. Before beginning the artwork, I jotted down my ideas on paper and created several preparatory sketches to get a clearer vision of the final composition, the elements to include, and the techniques I wanted to use.

I chose the doe as a reference to an image that had made a particularly strong impression during the news coverage of the fires in Gironde: a doe had been spotted in the middle of the areas affected by the fires. That image had been widely shared and had become a much-discussed topic. Here, therefore, it represents nature and animals directly confronted with the consequences of the fires, but also a form of vulnerability in the face of an environment that has become hostile.

I wanted the card to give the impression that it had actually experienced the events it recounts. To achieve this, I started by soaking it in coffee, then crumpled it to give it an old, worn, and weathered look. The idea was to suggest that it had traveled and bore the marks of its journey. I then singed the edges of the map with matches and a candle to create a direct link between the material of the object and its subject: fire. To depict the forest in the background, I used charcoal, whose texture and hues evoke burnt wood and landscapes after a fire. Conversely, I used watercolor to depict the flames. This choice deliberately creates a rather paradoxical contrast: a technique associated with water is used here to represent fire. I also used real leaves to create the flames. I cut them out and slightly reshaped them to accentuate their forms and make them look more like flames.

Contrast is an important element of the card. The stamp, with its cooler colors, depicts a wave and offers a glimpse of an orange sun. It evokes both water and fire, thus creating a contrast with the card’s main image. This interplay between elements, colors, and techniques allows opposites to coexist: fire and water, heat and cold, destruction and life.

I used the remaining fallen leaves to create the letters of the word “Gironde.” Generally, a postcard features the name of a city or destination, such as Paris or Marseille. I chose to subvert this convention by, for once, featuring a department, since the Gironde is directly linked to the 2026 wildfires that inspired my project. I then painted the letters black to create a contrast with the organic texture of the leaves and make the word more legible.

For the sender’s first name, I chose Ignace, which comes from the Latin Ignatius, traditionally associated with the concept of “fire.” This choice thus directly echoes the theme of fires, but the name also serves a second purpose in my project. I wanted to give the sender a childlike and slightly incredulous quality. The idea is to depict the way children sometimes fail to immediately grasp the gravity of what’s happening around them. The character thus describes a serious situation—a forest on fire—with a certain naivety, as if he weren’t fully aware of what’s going on around him. This is also why I deliberately included spelling mistakes in the text. They contribute to this childlike quality and reinforce the contrast between the message’s almost innocent tone and the gravity of the subject matter.

Through this postcard, I wanted to repurpose an object associated with vacations, travel, and memories to turn it into a testament to a far more disturbing event. Each element was designed to echo the subject: the doe to represent wildlife, the leaves to symbolize nature and the flames, the charcoal to evoke the burned forest, the scorched edges to embody the fire, the coffee to give the postcard a story and a sense of lived experience, and the name Ignace to create an additional connection to the theme. The overall effect thus rests on a contrast between the almost childlike and traditional appearance of the postcard and the gravity of the story it tells.