My Journey….

Discovery of Photography

In my artistic journey, photography was the first step. A school of sensitivity in service of measuring things. A calibration of the eye to shapes and colors!
During my communication training, I discovered photography as a tool for witnessing the world, through reportage and its media applications. 
I saw it as a means to express my sensitive and aesthetic perception of the world around me, pursuing a goal, that  of “changing the way people look at things”, encouraging them to abandon the ostentatious to discover the authentic….

My vision of the world is that of a living fresco within which “the play of appearances and false pretenses flourishes: details of a Sicilian roof offering the appearance of chocolate wafers, ghostly shapes dancing on the water’s surface, the almost quilted texture of a strawberry… My compositions are an abstraction where lines and colors  predominate.But, very quickly,  the frozen surface of glossy paper frustrates me. Once printed on paper, my images appear to me frozen in their glossy paper prison, completely out of sync with the” vital energy that inspired their birth. I therefore choose to give the flat image a tangible materiality and become interested in framing (for which I underwent training) which becomes  an extension of the image, forming a plastic work in its own right.  

By reflecting reality back to photography, a “trompe l’oeil is created where vision gets lost, questions itself and is” amazed. The frame, far from confining, liberates the subject matter and offers the imagination an immediate reality that places the viewer back in the context of the shot. It becomes one with the image and offers a theatrical staging of the work, which I pursue even in my exhibitions.

Discovery of Painting…

It’s in India that I discover the notion of chromatic  universe, in the saturated lights of this country and the flamboyant monochromatic schemes offered by everyday objects.  

I gradually abandonned photography for a more decorative form of expression: “mirrors” with cut-out edges bearing fragments of materials enriched with colors.  Gradually, the formats grow larger and the first abstract compositions appear, created on wooden panels. 

In 2002, I discover Jean-Philippe Lenclos’ work on the geography of colors (each geographical location has an identity of colors, materials, and graphics based on its environment, culture, or local tradition) and decide to turn definitively towards painting to be able to express my own chromatic vision of the world.  Opting for stretchers, which are lighter, I created my first paintings inspired by the colors of the world, which I used to enrich through the exploration of emblematic materials and “ethnographic” research on the cultures that inspire me. Thus, starting from geographical themes, each of my canvases offered my own sensitive vision of a city or region of the world through the prism of its chromatic universe but also one of its emblematic cultural elements. (Burlap, wild silk, metal, paper or wood shavings…)

…and of Matter

But the flat surface of painting is not enough for me.  Because, beyond an aesthetic and chromatic vision of the world, what interests me is  the thickness of the world, the way in which man leaves his imprint, through the visible elements by which he expresses himself and which characterize, distinguish and identify him. 

I therefore enrich my “geography” of color by exploring its emblematic materials and conducting “ethnographic” research on the cultures that inspire me. Thus, starting from geographical themes, each of my canvases offers my own sensitive vision of a city or region of the world through the prism of its chromatic universe but also one of its emblematic cultural elements.  

An integral part of the canvas, the materials bring the ultimate expression of a feeling completed by imagination. A way for me to testify to the aesthetic beauty of the world while using its tangible components, and, thereby, to claim my own belonging to the world, connected to it in the universal sensation of the creative act…

Materials and Colors, the Blending

My technique borrows from both sculpture (modeling) and painting.

The material offers an anchor point in reality.  Its manipulation is the  realm of the instinctive, the spontaneous, but also of identity. The material is also what brings me back to my innate reality: the necessity for direct, almost carnal contact with the medium. Primarily recycled, the material becomes a living texture into which I plunge my hands to instinctively find the “balance of forms and physical harmony on the canvas.  It is kneaded, molded before being” fixed in glue or coatings.

Once dry, the hardened material becomes an enormous swelling that constitutes the “body” of the “artwork, ready to receive color. Because on my canvases, the raw material is never left as is. Raw, the material belongs to the domain of the instinctive, the spontaneous, and the intimate. For me, the material is the” identifying element by essence. As a support for the imprint, it offers the physical means to assert one’s mark, to reveal one’s particularity, necessarily requiring the work of color which is its clothing, its skin…  

Entirely put at the service of the material, color,  symbol of culture, unveils, reveals, and transcends. 
In this unconditional relationship between materials and colors, the skin and the heart can establish a dialogue, and it is this dialogue that is at the heart of my work. The material makes visible a disposition of reality and creates a particular perception where the skin and the heart can finally speak to each other…

Staging

The staging in my work is cultural: a Mediterranean fantasy masking a terrible melancholy. A paradox inherited from my region of origin, southern Italy, grandiose and poetic. A singular geographical island with a contrasted mentality, an arid and deeply warm region, where  attachment to the land is identity-based and matter is omnipresent, both prisoner and nourishing… Monstrous hills in ochre and brown hues, where wild grasses struggle to survive and yet cling on. An environment of striking beauty and miserable destiny giving the derisory sensation of being invincible there.

When I go there, I feel the inexpressible bond that ties me to the thick earth, which one grasps with a full hand and which remains the ultimate link of belonging to a society. 

Identity Quest

Travel has always been part of my culture. With adventurous souls and generous hearts, my parents passed on to me a taste for curiosity and a sense of discovery: opening up to the unknown, accepting its surprises, savoring its riches, while letting chance play its part.  

My work is deeply marked by the claim of a personality in constant identity questioning, carrying within it the contradictory values of its countries of origin.

Creative Process

A secret power binds me to the material, and my creative act can only be impulsive. 
It’s a bet on beauty, tinged with a hint of common sense…

The composition is directed by my hands, the balance of forms I feel more than I reason. 
In the sometimes inadequate light of my studio, I sculpt the material, associate unthinkable materials, divert, cut, and break following a ritual. It’s the most demanding part of creation, followed by long hours of waiting for everything to coagulate and unite..  

A physical harmony between the components. 

The positioning of materials, the balance of their forms, and the distribution of their weight on the canvas is a magical act, a mixture of chemistry and mechanics. Once dry, it becomes an enormous swelling that remains to be dressed in colors…

I experiment with the mixing of colors on the spot. Depending on its texture and porosity, the material forces me to adapt my techniques: only a very diluted “wash” will manage to penetrate the fibers of a rebellious fabric, a pasty mixture will adhere to an overly smooth silk, a touch of pure pigments  will reveal the subtle grain of a textile surface. By forcing the gesture, it’s the material that directs the inspiration…

Similarly, the choice of paint establishes the universe of the artwork. The monochromatic tones derived from earth, accentuated by their powdery aspect, evoke desert sand. Shiny and transparent, the lacquer applied on smoothed wood draws us into an aquatic universe.  

Creative energy

I condition myself mentally. You have to feel the right moment, the one where the urge, the senses, are sharpened to the point you welcome a real emotion, coupled to the energy that fits it. It’s this same energy that takes shape. In everyday life, I constantly observe, I unconsciously photograph details that inspire me to work on a material, which makes it possible to open the dialogue.

 The moment when I feel that the visual rendering merges with my thoughts and my vital need to feel my emotions fully expressed. To experience that troubling feeling that one has managed to understand oneself…

2011: Towards conceptual abstraction

My openness to international networks offers me the opportunity to participate in art festivals “abroad, during which I confront my sensibility with that of artists from around the world. Through” exchange and dialogue, I feel the need to express myself through new techniques that gradually lead me towards a more conceptual form of art through 3D works and installations.

I join the Energy Tracks movement, an international group of artists whose experiments focus on physical and chemical processes capable of creating chromatic or plastic energy. My research then focuses on the polymerization of glues on fragile materials such as cardboard, paper, and fabric, transforming their structure. In opposition to the search of an ephemeral claim, my works fit into the dynamics of time which would no longer have a hold over the so-called “fragile” material, making it fulfill the challenge of lasting. 

My artistic project revolves around the idea of packaging in its allegorical sense of “social adornment”, but especially around its paradoxes. Interpreted in its vocation as a sign, this packaging becomes in turn the cocoon announcing birth, the plastic exaltation of a metamorphosis, or a decoy capable of modifying identity by altering form.  

International festivals and meetings

-10th Festival of Plastic Arts in Settat (Morocco) – July 2012
exhibition and workshop meetings with artists from the Arab world and Europe

-Contemporary Art Festival “I colori del mondo”, Roccella Ionica (Italy) – September 2012
exhibition and meetings with artists from around the world

-International ART IN VENICE
sharing life with artists William Herrod (USA), Lorna Crane (Australia) and Martin Stynes (England)

Significant personal artistic encounters:

-visit to Nik Spatari’s studio and interview with his wife, director of Musaba museum 
-visit to the studio and interview with Ali HASSAN (Qatar)
-visit to the studio and day meeting with Italian artist Lino Porrari (Milan)
-Artist residency at DART LOUANE, Rabat (Morocco)
-Artistic residency in architect Chris Reati’s studio in Bordeaux, meetings with photographers and sculptors from the region

The PEBEO adventure: a liberation of gesture

For 10 years, I worked as a trainer/instructor for the export service of Pébeo, a French manufacturer of fine art products. My mission was to train and demonstrate to importing clients from different countries as well as staff from large retailers the application or use of the manufacturer’s ranges in a “fine arts” version. This experience required me to perform improvised but controlled gestures in front of an international audience. In addition to discovering varied cultural universes, meeting local artists from Portugal to the USA, through Russia or Eastern European countries, this experience brought me an openness to my own gestures and a form of confidence that allowed me to open up to previously untried modes of creation

My definition of art

 A questioning, a sensitive look on the world that we are part of. Experimentation is kind of a form of resistance. To push beyond limits, open new doors, question what lies beyond the acquired knowledge, refuse comfort for a risk that might be worth it. Art is, above all, a vector of communication towards others. I consider that the life of an artwork begins when it leaves the studio, at the moment of an exhibition,  when it offers itself to the gaze of others. It becomes a marvelous excuse in interacting with the others who express their own emotion and comment on yours, to the point of sometimes revealing the most obscure aspects of your personality, offering a hint of an answer that will lead you to other questions. A way to feel vibrant, to be alive.

2020: Discovery of sculpture and ceramics

 Following various trainings at Gwendoline Aubert’s and Brigitte Gruson’s workshops, I discover ceramics which brings another dimension to working with materials. Passionate about the NERIAGE technique and following the discovery of the potters of Sejnane, Tunisia, and their ancestral technique of terra sigillata, I orient my work towards these practices that open up to the full artistic expression of working with clay. In parallel, I deploy my discovery of material in a sculptural version of my recycling techniques and material collages.

Community Life 

-From 2005 to 2010, Co-founder and president of the association “Drôles de femmes”, a Law 1901 association aimed at promoting female entrepreneurship. 

-From 2007 to 2009, co-founder of the association l’art en partages, a Law 1901 association aimed at raising awareness about creation through exchange and sharing.
-2023: Creation of the association “Toutar et thérapie” aimed at promoting

Exhibitions

Guest of honor Salon des peintres de Sailly sur La lys (2024), About Leo Ferré, Corps de garde Gravelines (2023), Abtr’art,\Château de Wervicq (2020), Espace Nelson Mandela (La Chapelle d’Armentières/expo solo) (2020) , EWA expo, Ammann(Jordan) (2019), Gallery « La griffe », Rome (Italy)/expo solo\(2018), Gallery « Il Polmone pulsante », Rome (Italy) /expo solo(2018), « Tracce », Tolve, (Italy)/expo solo (2017), “Materie e colori\”,\nCentre de l’OTAN (Naples,Italy)/expo solo (2016), The Format Contemporary Culture Gallery, Milan (Italy) (2015), « Energy\Tracks », Lugo di Romagna (Italiy) (2013), World art in Venice –Venice (Italy(2012), « I colori del mondo »– Roccella ionica\(Italy) (2012), Galerie de la croix blanche – Bondues\(France)/expo solo (2012), «Matières et couleurs», Espace F.Mitterand – Loos (France)/expo solo (2011), « Kunst in Hospital», Marienhospital – Düsseldorf (Germany)/expo solo (2011), Galerie La Corderie – Marcq en Baroeul (France)/expo solo\(2011), Salon « contrastes » – Roubaix (France) (2011), Galerie\Am’art Louise – Brussels (Belgium) (2010), Galerie R’art – Capinghem, (France)/expo solo\(2008), « Le son des couleurs » – Kuurne (Belgium) (2008), «art d’origine »-centre culturel De Steiger –Menen (Belgium)\(2008), Lille 3000 » Maison Folie de Moulins, Espace Pignon –Lille, (France)/expo solo (2007), « Matières et couleurs», Galerie Robespierre -Grande Synthe (France)/expo solo (2005)

Installations :

Abtr’art, Château de Wervicq (2020) – « Tracce », Tolve, (Italy)/expo solo (2017), « Biennale di arte contemporanea» ,Palazzo dei Papi– Viterbo (Italy) (2014), « Objet textile » , musée du textile – Roubaix (France) (2013)

As a visual arts instructor in various structures for diverse audiences, I also offer courses and workshops focused on materials and their transformation through color in my own studio in Lille, as well as in various other structures. My approach to artistic practice aims to stimulate creativity, open sensitivity to new horizons and above all… to learn to dare! 

In my workshops, the approach is human-centered : children, families, adults in vulnerable situations will find a way to feel valued through creation. I work with diverse audiences: associations, social centers, IME and other specific groups (disability, Alzheimer’s), in France but also abroad as I am fluent in English and Italian.

To learn more:

–retrospective video
–interview