American Ingenue in Paris Painting

Hilarie Couture has been drawing since the age of two, but after a hiatus of 43 years, has only recently been able to concentrate on her art full time. All of her life experiences have translated to her canvases as she is self- taught but attends workshops from many artists she admires. Within the past year, she founded the Premiere Pastel Society of Indiana based in Fort Wayne, a 501 c-3 non profit pastel painters association created to educate the members and the public about soft pastel as a fine art medium. Hilarie is represented by MastersMentors and Modern Fine Art and Gallery 02 on Broadway , in Fort Wayne, Indiana and Attic Gallery, Camas, Washington. She has had solo shows, has participated in various local and national group shows and in 2016, had curated her own travelling show in Vancouver Washington called” Founding Mothers Portraits of Progress”, painting 55 portraits of women in her community who made contributions in an effort to honor them. This show exhibited throughout the city for almost two years at numerous venues as a community outreach and at the Historic Museum and the Fort Vancouver Gallery as a tribute to these remarkable women during Women’s History month. Later, Hilarie wrote a book to document the project and more information about this is on her website, . She recently created a project highlighting the diversity in Fort Wayne called “Unity with Variety”, an art show featuring people in the Fort Wayne area, representing various cultures and backgrounds. This was a community outreach and lead to various programs, panel discussions and exhibits that cycled the region for over a year after its’ debut at the Jeffery Krull gallery in Fort Wayne. It included an opening reception with the unveiling of 52 paintings where the subjects and the public witnessed it together for the first time. She also wrote an exhibition book to document this project with an audio component. In May, 2024 she had another solo show at the Jeffery Krull Gallery called, “A DAY IN THE LIFE” , showcasing scenes from daily life in and around her community. Hilarie has been a guest judge for different art group competitions, such as The Gateway International Show on line. She has also been a judge at Lakeland Art Center for their regional show. Another recent achievement was being published in a prestigious French art magazine “Pratique Des Art” Issue #53 with a six page article about her portraiture work.