Issue 5 Artist Spotlight | Fleur Thesmar
C+B: Tell us about yourself, Fleur!
FT: I am a full-time artist. In my free time, I contemplate nature, I cook, I read. I take care of the people and places around me. I was once a successful lobbyist. It is very modern and self satisfying to use one's image to promote something (a product, a politics or an idea) and even to become the product of trade: this influence involves communication tools, ideas, photographs, images. It is very common in art, too. In a way, I rebelled against this. I started to contemplate the world, just as something free and separate from me. I felt naked: no idea or photograph could act as a medium between me and the world. This is how I became a painter: representing the illusions of the world as I see them, became an existential path to freedom.
C+B: How has your relationship with your work changed since you first started creating?
FT: After a first phase where I felt ecstatic at the idea of being able to paint everything, I experienced a personal crisis: what is the point of painting or photographing everything? With what medium and why? I chose watercolor which has the virtue of being very low in pollution and non-VOC emitting. I aim to represent the other, the strange, impossible spaces, snippets of memory, a harmony inspired by the space that surrounds me. My work is not about duplication of things, but a new way of telling things.
C+B: Share some details about your process for creating.
FT: I usually start in the evening with monotypes and work on digital sketches. I then paint in the morning in silence, 4-5 hours in a row.
C+B: Which creator (present day or in the past) do you most admire and why? What draws you to their work?
FT: I like David Hockney in the present for his work and his books, his motto "love life." I am enthralled by Géricault, whose life and influence have been exceptional.
C+B: What is something exciting that you're looking forward to in your life or creative life?
FT: I am looking forward spending the next year in Paris!
Find and support Fleur here:
IG: @fleurtdefrance
Website: fleurtdefrance.com
(Memory Box, 22’’ x 30’’, watercolor, ©Fleur Thesmar)
If my work was a meal it would be: Babette's feast
I would love to be able to share my work with: I would love to show my work to writers, or architects, and ask them why so few of them write about appearances and art. I've read that the more you are exposed to something, the more you like it: so in theory, tastes should conform to usage. But the fashion of clothing for the last 40 years seems to be an accumulation that ends up in the dumps, the "minimalism" has ended up giving birth to gigantic objects in concrete or plastic, as if the boredom and the destruction of the environment were an art form in itself. Should we be forced to accept this? Isn't it important to write about visual tastes and the appearance of artworks?
If I didn’t work in my current medium, I would like to try: I make textiles, whose slow and meditative rhythm I appreciate. I also want to explore more the way I photograph things and how I use it in my work.
Who are your favorite creators to follow (emerging or experienced)? Astrid Dick @chastrida, Francois Nugues @francois.nugues, Dino Chatila @dinochatila and Jasmine Chen @jasminechenstudio
My hope for those viewing my work: I hope they take away a symphony of light and colors.
Fleur Thesmar
