William Fautre

I worked for 35 years as a professional photographer here in France for several nature and travel magazines (Terre Sauvage, Grands Reportages, La Marche, VTT Magazine) and have always loved to paint. Though I’m largely self-taught, I also took sculpture and modeling classes with Pascal Gilbert de Vautibault. My years as a nature photographer gave me a keen sense of observation, choice of light, frame, and simply being immersed in nature itself was a lesson in how to look at the natural world.

A landscape for me is not just a backdrop, its also a vector for our emotions. Ever-changing according to seasons and light but also to our mood and our perception of places at specific moments in time. I grew up in the countryside, surrounded by woods and fields and rivers. And those years as a nature photographer, all those hours spent capturing the changing light – things that were indefinable - have left deep inside me a feeling of fullness and energy. I try to find through painting what I might call unity of moment, or harmony. When I’m working on a painting, all these emotions resurface, like colours, a horizon line, the presence of the wind. These elements emerge progressively as the painting takes shape. My intent is by no means to t...