Oh, Soleil Levant Painting

I am drawn to the idea that as artists, we are the channels for art pieces to be born. That there are realms where those beings dwell and somehow get expressed through us, their unique language being brush strokes, paper cut outs, clay, colour or form. As Clarissa Pinkola Estés puts it in Women who run with the wolves, one brings “an image from the unseen world into being”. My recent work speaks of the Divine Feminine, an energy that is very much of the Earth and of the body, an energy that has been suppressed for a long time in all of us, men and women alike. I believe that our future and the future of our planet depends on us reconciling with this energy, bringing it forth into the world, and re-balancing it with the Divine Masculine. My pieces are treasures that have been gathered from the ancient world. I love artists such as Joan Mitchell, Picasso, Cy Twombly and Wangechi Mutu. I was born and raised in Toulouse, in the South of France, and I now work and live in South East London. I first came to London to study a BA in Fashion Design Womenswear at Central Saint Martins, and a few years later, after working as a free-lance jewellery designer, I went on to study an MA in Painting at the Glasgow School of Art. I was commissioned to design and make jewellery for the windows at Selfridges, Oxford Street, London, as well as Menswear jewellery pieces for the Mugler Paris Fashion catwalk show, Spring-Summer 2012. My Fine Art work has been exhibited in Paris, Helsinki, Glasgow and London, and has been bought by private collectors around the world (New York, Seattle, Australia, UK...). I was longlisted for both the SaatchiArt Online Painting Showdown in 2015 and the Signature Art Prize in 2014. I was a runner-up for the Secret Art Prize, organized by Curious Duke Gallery, London, in 2014. I have also been published in Magazines and catalogues, and in 2009 I was awarded the Colin Barnes Drawing Prize, in recognition of excellence in drawing. In 2007, I won the Louis Vuitton Bag Design Competition, organized by Central Saint Martins. I also assisted Andrew Kerr in setting-up his solo exhibition “So Ensconced” (Nov 11/ Jan 12) at Inverleith House, Edinburgh.