Leçon de cueillette des dattes (2022) Painting by Annie Gaurenne

Very young, I absolutely had to earn a living and, in fact, interrupt my training at the BEAUX-ARTS school in Paris a few months after my admission. It was only in the 90s, after my retirement from active life, that I was finally able to satisfy my desire to paint... It was the decisive and marvelous discovery of the countries of the South that I visited which will lead me to devote myself exclusively to Orientalist painting.

It is true that I have always loved the Orient through the works of certain masters of the 19th century. At the same time, I never ceased to wonder about the past of maternal grandparents whom I never knew, French who lived at the beginning of the 20th century for a few years in Algeria. For lack of being able to shed light on this family past, I feed through dreams imprinted in my imagination a plausible parental story which I use today as a source of inspiration... And in fact, I do not paint the current East but that of yesteryear. My oil paintings, chronicles of a bygone era, tell a story, serve as a work of memory, invite you to travel.

In a language that I want to be delicate, I strives to make snapshots capable of capturing the liveliness of the characters and animals. Thus, the humble scenes of life, surprised in their most familiar aspect, are so many little stories that I tell with tenderness.

At 84 years old, I escape again and again through black and white postcards from the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century as well as photographs taken during my travels. It is without restraint that I take advantage of all the moments that are still granted to me to satisfy my passion because, you have to get used to it, time flows, flees, immutable. I take with kindness the advice of years after having long since naturally renounced my youth. In the meantime, I always keep my eyes wide open to make the most of this true adventure that is existence, if possible.

• Nationality: FRANCE
• Date of birth : 1938
• Artistic domains:
• Groups: Contemporary French Artists