Iris Painting

Christine was born in Belgium. After Primary School, she graduated in Art History and Archeology at the Université Libre de Bruxelles. Then, she moved to Florence, Italy, to follow a three-year course in wood restoration at “Palazzo Spinelli” Institute for Art and Restoration. ​ The techniques of leaf gilding on wood are what it has been most interested to her; after graduating in Florence she has began her work experience in the field of gilding and decoration in various artisan workshops both in Florence and in Bologna. After this she deepened the studying of decoration and its techniques attending the high school of painting “fake marble and fake wood” Van der Kellen et Logelain in Brussels. After graduation, she has returned to live in Italy, in Perugia,where she still works in the field of restoration and decoration. ​ Her most recent works are rooted in her artisan training. Most of the artisans who work with metal leaf usually perform with very approximate techniques, such as glue gilding: instead, in her works, Christine always proposes a water gilding, regardless of the type of metal used; because it becomes a real expressive form when, with a game of burnishing, it manages to get those depths that have nothing to envy to those obtained with colors. And it is on this “support” that color and its expressions come into play : integrating and completing a fund that is already an engraved story. The observer's attention at the first impact falls on bright colors exactly as a bee settles on a beautiful flower because it is colored. When the eye goes beyond color, it finds a delicate story told by an engraved background full of light and shadows. ​ Probably, a few years ago, Christine would have never have exhibited her works, ranging from oils to watercolors to metal foil : because she has always considered them an intimate research that concerned only her. But one day she said to herself : “show some of your works!”Et voilà! ​