Paysage jaune (2024) Painting by Valérie Chrétien

Valérie Chrétien is a contemporary French artist who paints to convey and provoke emotions. Her works evoke serenity, nostalgia, and a sense of escape, inviting viewers on temporal and geographical journeys. Chrétien draws inspiration from the significant places and periods of her life. Her early years were spent in Africa, Madagascar, and Latin America, where she encountered poverty daily, yet retained only vibrant and colorful memories, which she captures in her art with simplicity, giving her paintings a universal appeal.

Brittany, where Chrétien currently resides, holds a central place in her work as a land of roots and refuge. Her solitary walks along the customs paths and deserted beaches of this region deeply influence her creations. In her studio, Chrétien breaks away from the figurative, reinterpreting her observations from a non-realistic perspective, using bold colors like yellow, red, and blue.

Her process involves covering canvases with modeling paste, often incorporating paper collage, and then applying layers of paint. These layers are rubbed, scraped, and sanded to create relief and texture. Chrétien uses "paint juices"—leftover pigments collected from her process—to embellish other canvases drying on her easels.

Art, for Chrétien, contains an inherent element of mystery. She finalizes her pieces only at the last moment, blending abstraction and figuration by sketching subtle elements like a sail or a rock, or by leaving the interpretation entirely to the viewer’s imagination. This unpredictability extends to her use of inks, which she has been exploring for six years. The alchemy between the liquids in her ink work results in a unique, often unexpected outcome, adding to the intrigue of her artistic practice.