I came to painting because contemplating art, in books, at exhibitions was, and remains, a moment of release, of complete comfort which reconnected me with something greater. An intense feeling of being alive !
I have always been attracted by aesthetics and this medium, but I started really quite late, as a mother wanting to share and transmit a wonderful resource given to us.
Entirely self-taught, for me painting is above all a way to empty oneself in order to have a deeper self-understanding, a release for emotions, a story through colours, material, layering, scraping, drying. In order to reconnect with what surrounds us, the natural flow of life.
The body and the physical feeling is very important. Painting frees the mind, the incessant stream of thoughts and the weight of the body which can be limiting, leaving space for the essence of our being, living in the present moment and taking pleasure in simply being alive. Most especially it reconnects one with this childlike spontaneity that the adult world can often stifle or condition. It is my way of getting to know myself better, to make progress, to discover myself, to overcome certain mental obstacles, to give my soul a voice, like a kind of therapy. It is a moment for oneself, precious, restorative, in silence or accompanied by music, but most of the time sitting on the floor, and working on a large canvas or sheet. I find it brings a more primitive aspect.
I like colours which overlap and harmonise sometimes in a surprising way and I especially like to find raw materials that tell a story as a base. I like paper, untreated wood found in nature. However my heart settled on canvases of old sheets, family clothing, washed, used, passed from one generation to another, heavy in all senses of the word. Sometimes embroidered, but I prefer them plain, these are everyday objects that tell a story. There is a handover; a relationship with the intimate and that which is hidden that can be eased and brought into the present through the representation of shapes, symbols and the use of colour. It is as if they have been washed, without forgetting the past, simply using them as a base, a starting point.
I leave these ‘pieces of cloth’ as they are, free to be suspended, hung, framed or lain on the floor and contemplated. A little like in a space that where we could come and observe, enjoy the journey, ‘lay down our luggage’ for a moment and rest our mind.
