A l'heure de l'été 1 (summertime 1) Painting

I am a young French artist, holding a diploma from Paris' ENSBA (Superior Fine Arts National School). I have attended Pat Andréa's and Jean-Michel Alberola’s workshops, I have loved Philippe Comar's morphology courses and James Bloedé's teachings. I also spent much time wandering in Paris, a town I love and where I was born. I have also studied in detail the Louvre' and Orsay' chefs-d'oeuvres, only a short distance away from my school. Today I share my time between Paris and Lyon where I teach Painting and History of art. After some meandering into minimalist and conceptual art, I have come back to my first love : figurative, realist drawing and painting, which I have practiced since I was 6 y.o. I am deeply attached to the technical dimension, the painter's trade, nowadays too often forgotten (I like beautiful tools, well-prepared canvases, the play of alternating thin and thick layers, varnish finish…) I work with live models, memories and photos, all of which I mix and carefully recompose in large formats. My practice is along the time-long tradition of nude work. I want to emphasize today's young Parisian woman, naturally beautiful, elegant, conscious of her seductive power, fearlessly asserting her independence and freedom. My latest paintings, small format, more affordable, resume my favorite subjects, but their composition is freer, more spontaneous, more dynamic. These paintings are inspired by amateur photographic images from social networks. They work ideally in series and offer a contemporary update of polyptych. Late 19th-century painters, realists, impressionists, who have revived the tradition of the nude, have had much influence on my approach. I admire and am inspired by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres' lines, Paul Gauguin's palette, Edouard Manet's touch and spare treatment of figures, Edgar Degas' frames, Auguste Renoir's sensuality... I also like the 1920-1930's renewal of realist art. My works are in private collections in France, Belgium, Italy, Deutschland, Holland, America, Hong-Kong, and Russia.