Under a Spell

Concept

I am a French-Canadian visual artist based in Montréal, Québec. I am a self-taught painter and a member of the Atelier Circulaire in Montréal where I study lithography and etching since 2019.

My artistic background began in contemporary dance and choreography; I performed internationally with Desrosiers Dance Company throughout the 1980s. This is when I began to paint and also develop my style of drawing. I toured the world and also received numerous grants to study dance and choreograph in New-York, where I discovered the work of artists like Basquiat, Condo, Haring and Marden…

My collaboration with set and lighting designers for live performance, has given me a knowledge of colourisation and lighting intensities, which I apply in my visual art.

I work in mix media technique and will often start with collage to create a model which allows me to validate my idea. These original ideas can go to digital printing with the addition of pictograms etc.

In painting I work with color and rhythm, using brushes and different plastering tools. Again, with the influence of printing, I use a glass table as a flat surface and add layers with different mediums to create depth. Organicity and rawness emerge from this blend of techniques, allowing the viewers to interpret the work in their own way.

The Japanese painter Aki Kuroda is a strong influence for me, and some of my work uses Japanese minimalist forms and symbols. I am also interested by several Spanish artists: Tapies, painter and Gonzales, sculptor and of course the most famous of all time, Picasso.

Another artist that has influenced me lately is Olafur Eliassen. His creative process with light suggests intuitive non-verbalised sensations as a shape of an idea. This is how I explore an emotional narrative in my present work. Eliassen says:

‘Intuition is never a moment: it is always a FLOW’