Opening, my first solo show!
In January, when asked about my New Year’s Resolutions (and confessing I had none!) a friend suggested I work towards my first solo show. I’m not sure I would have dared having the thought myself but the timing could not have been more perfect: a couple of months later I was feeling drawn towards new adventures, making me want to reflect on and celebrate the first steps of my artistic journey here in London.
Opening has been the opportunity to share 90 pieces with you, from some created at the very beginning of my practice four years ago, to the latest pieces finished only a few days prior.
It was the first time I could share the whole range of my painting practice: a variety of mediums (oil, pastel, gouache and pencil), of surfaces and formats (stretched or linen offcut, board, ceramic, book and sketchbook) that are all connected by recurring themes, vibrant colours, playful experimentations and each containing big chunks of my heart.
Building up to it
I’ve previously shared with you through the newsletters how I’ve struggled to create throughout the past two years, sometimes for months at a time. In January I started feeling better thanks to therapy but I wasn’t sure how much I could push myself with this new deadline, so I kept open the idea of creating new works or simply presenting the one already birthed.
Not giving myself such pressure turned out to be very fertile, and after coming back from a transformative retreat in May I felt a strong desire to paint! I got unstuck with a few paintings that I had been working on and abandoning for over a year (Self-Portrait with a Friend and Among the Garbage and the Flowers), as well as some bright new ideas that I felt an urgency to explore (The Fire) and other playful experiments (see the two ceramic pieces below).
Yet two weeks before the show I started realising what I had committed myself to and got really nervous- my mind was very tired and foggy and I wasn’t feeling confident. The new paintings felt very raw, full of my vulnerabilities and I could no longer see them clearly, my mind was questioning their worth and filled with illogical fears. I’m glad I was able to notice those thoughts arise in me while keeping some little distance from it -thankfully it’s not my first rodeo so I remembered that the worries are only proportional to how much I care (a lot) but that ultimately everything will be fine (I hoped, and was proven once again!).
Big thanks!
I’m so so so grateful for the support I had in these tricky last moments! Thanks to each of you who messaged such positive thoughts, it truly helped me regain exciting perspectives!
I’m also so thankful for choosing to show at Rod Kitson’s gallery -working with a fellow artist who understands the struggles made me feel really safe and I don’t think I would have dared sharing my work this way in a different setting.
I also could not have dreamt of this curation without the help of my friend Sara. I know I could trust her fully to take care of my work and how to best present it (I’m not gonna lie, if it had been just my tired-worried brain I would have, at best done a poor job at curating, or simply froze!).
Similarly for the Private View, it was a very precious feelings knowing I could lean on my friends to take care of drinks and nibbles for which I wouldn’t have had the energy - I’m a very lucky bean!
My little recurring themes
When it came to the curation, I really wanted to gather the paintings through their themes and mix them regardless of when they were created. It made me incredibly happy to rediscover how pieces from a few years apart could resonate with each other. It revealed some starting points, some iterations and tangents, the recurring patterns and motifs.
On the left as you entered you could see my most recent painting (Among the Garbage and the Flowers) followed by other pieces from my imagination. They all stem from sleep, day dreaming or inner worlds with some of theme carrying heavy emotions. Needless to say this is a part of my work that is very close to my heart, for which I don’t often have many words but always always a lot of love.
Further on this wall were gathered small paintings done from life, with models or friends. I love how they each take me back to the day it was painted, like a journal.
In the corner were meeting one of my latest painting (The Fire) and a portrait done three years ago of my friend Elia - on a similar format and medium, it made happy to see how the language has evolved: in the painting of Elia there was a lot of seeds in the mark making that have since grown and are on their way to getting wilder and wilder (I imagine)!
Then on the back wall were hung little daily observations painted from life. Some from life drawing sessions which I used to attend weekly, some of my boat or the landscape around as well as plein air sessions with friends. On the shelf I was presenting a range of little objects that are each close to my heart: some small paintings from imagination, the new experiments on ceramic (see below), a handmade book I illustrated in ink and my concertina sketchbook with memories of last summer.
The next wall was presenting the part of my practice that comes more directly from childhood, often taking the many Kodak pictures my parents took as starting points for gouache or oil paintings.
A little after, some slightly older work that I’m still very found on -each a portrait of a precious person or moment, with in particular the portrait of Florencia, one of the very first painting where I felt emerging what my personal language was.
The curation finished with self-portraits. I remember struggling to understand the value of the self as subject at first, but in fact some of those paintings have been very transformative and healing, especially the portrait of my hands. Some are more like little studies playfully exploring different palettes and view points, as well as revealing specifics moods they have been created from. These too feel like a pretty raw journal of the states I’ve been through.
The new pieces
Among the Garbage and the Flowers,
oil and pastel on linen 100x50cm
The painting was born from a small pencil doodle, sketched maybe a year ago. I was thinking about the inner-child, reparative thoughts and soothing gestures.
As I first painted it I quickly felt very stuck, the pose was stiff, the portrait defiant, the colours bleak and I realised quickly I wasn’t yet in the right head space to paint it. I turned it around and was longing for the day I could do it justice.
In April things had shifted and I felt an urge to resume this piece. I made some big changes in the figure before going on a therapeutic retreat. Once back I felt I just had been given some keys to complete this painting. A big part of it was some gained confidence to follow my intuition without questioning or judging it.
It also recalibrated the way I think about my hands in my paintings. I was writing in the last newsletter ‘there’s this awkward thing, of not being able to use myself for reference in a straightforward manner: I have to decide whether or not I give this reference some fingers, whether it’s a proclaimed self-portrait or whether I pretend to make it a total stranger. I do not like this part of my process.’ I managed to let this dilemma go and not worry what hands I paint, and whether I call it self-portrait or not, I no longer want to have to make this binary decision.
Adding the flowers felt like wishing the painting good luck, like offerings. Creating this piece was challenging and vulnerable (everything coming from my imagination, easy to get harshly self-critical) so I felt that such lucky charms would help me feel brave.
Towards the end of the process, I realised this painting had been the prolongation of my very first self-portrait (And she shows you were to look): similar feelings of self-protection, guarding and caring for the hurt and vulnerable parts. But this time there’s a calmer energy to it, less guarded and more peaceful. Both titles come from the song Suzanne by Leonard Cohen (who inspired my name) and are two parts of the same line. I like the thoughts that those two paintings are in conversation and a visual measure of all the work I’ve done in these past four years.
The Fire,
oil on board 60x60cm sold
This painting recalls a very precious memories made during the retreat in May when I witnessed this otherworldly image. The fire radiating through my friend as she danced reminded me of a foetus-like glow, and touched my heart at its core. The more I lost (and found?) myself in this moment, the more colours appeared and everything seemed to make sense. Words are not able to hold what I experienced so I felt compelled to paint it as soon as I cane back. I first did it with a little gouache sketch (below) then prepared to scale it up to this board.
Relying on memories and sensations I knew I had to paint this piece very quickly, rushing before my critical mind would try to bring too much logic or fears to that process.
Self-Portrait with a friend,
oil on linen 40x28cm £700
I started painting on this one close to four years ago (it was a short-term memory of my hands after having stared at them for a few hours while modeling, somehow I wish I still had it).
A few months later I covered it with a self portrait (first left below), and that's when the little friend in the bottom left corner appeared. But the portrait itself wasn't satisfying and I kept trying to paint it and paint it, every sessions was ultimately wiped out and I was getting fairly frustrated (ie second from the left below).
But I really enjoyed how the little friend was trying to keep me company, I wanted to honour her. So after a long break from it I finally committed to this self portrait, done from life over a few sessions this past month. This time again it experienced many changes, but this time I forced myself to not wipe anything out but instead to build up successive layers, if you click on the last picture below you’ll have an idea of the texture that eventually appeared.
The successive self-portraits went through all kind of moods, as I was trying to be true to every mood that was coming as I painted it - so ultimately it is a layering of my various head spaces as I created it. I used to only be able to paint when I was feeling good enough (which is why I felt as if I could not paint for long periods of time, when I was too low) but through this painting I managed to push through and allow those various emotions to be expressed.
I’m ultimately very glad this painting got a closure and that I didn’t give up on this little friend that emerged four years ago!
Mia Drama I (right)
oil on ceramic, 14x16x8cm sold
I find a lot of joy in mixing up my surfaces, when I paint on my offcuts of linen I love that it’s not just about the flat image created through the pigments, the paintings are also what exists in the 3d space with us. They each hold their presences differently: some curve, some lay flat, some are stiff or heavy. I wanted to explore that further by making my own surfaces, cutting a ‘sheet’ of clay and having it curl before firing it.
Here’s the first piece I made this way. Obviously, it had to be after the painting I had made of my Teddy a couple of years ago. So here he is, painted with oil on handmade ceramic.
Window to Clapton (left)
oil on ceramic £120
This was one from life, from inside my boat looking at the view. The ceramic made the process very exciting, encouraging me to play with my marks, allowing the texture of the surface to come through, and its curve to play a role in the composition.
More thank-yous!
I’m still over the moon by how well received the show was, and moved by all the conversations that happened throughout. What felt the most encouraging and validating was that the whole range of my work seemed to resonate with one person or another. In the past I had thought that my smaller and wonkier formats were not ‘serious’ enough (even-though they are in my heart) and I’m very glad I was proven wrong!
Also, on the last day of the show, I turned 28 and believe me I could not have imagined a better way to celebrate it! Thanks again from the bottom of my heart to each of you that came or sent their thoughts.
It’s now time for group show, other collective exhibitions, and simply creating new work before.. the next solo show!
You can find the 90 paintings in the exhibition catalogue here :)