Forêt automne (2019) Painting by William Fautré

I worked for 35 years as a professional photographer, here in France, for several nature and travel magazines ( Terre Sauvage, Grands Reportages, La Marche, VTT Magazine) and have always loved to paint. Though I'm largely self-taught, I also took sculpture and modeling classes with Pascal Gibert de Vautibault, sculptor well none, artiste résident at the Villa Medicis. My years as a nature photographer gave me a keensense of observation, choice of light, frame, and simply being immersed in a nature itself was a lesson in how to look at the natural world.

A landscape for me is not just a backdrop, its also a vector for our emotions. Ever-changing according to seasons and light but also to our mood ad our perception of places at specific moments in time. I grew up in the contryside, surrounded by woods and fields and rivers. And those years as a nature photographer, all those hours spent capturing the changing light - things that were indefinable - have left deep inside me a feeling of fullness and energy. I try to find through painting what I might call unity of moment, or harmony. When I'm working on a painting, all these emotions resurface, like colours, a horizon line, the presence of the wind. These elements emerge progressively as the painting takes shape. My intent is by no means to reproduce nature, but to find my place alongside it.

• Nationality: FRANCE
• Date of birth : 1958
• Artistic domains:
• Groups: Contemporary French Artists