Hiver 2 – 2022-2023
Mixed media on paper
104,6 x 80 cm / 41,1 x 31,5 in.
Signed lower right and signed, titled and dated on the back

Printemps à Bibémus 7 – 2022
Mixed media on paper
119,5 x 79,5 cm / 47,05 x 31,3 in.
Signed lower right and signed, titled and dated on the back

Eté à Bibémus 1 – 2022
Mixed media on paper
119,7 x 78 cm / 47,1 x 30,7 in.
Signed lower right and signed, titled and dated on the back

Hiver 3 – 2022-2023
Mixed media on paper
159 x 100 cm / 62,6 x 39,3 in.
Diptych
Signed lower right and signed, titled and dated on the back

Automne à Bibémus 2 – 2022
Mixed media on paper
159 x 100 cm / 62,6 x 39,3 in.
Diptych
Signed lower right and signed and titled on the back

Printemps à Bibémus 5 – 2022
Mixed media on paper
159 x 99,5 cm / 62,6 x 39,1 in.
Diptych
Signed lower right and signed, titled and dated on the back

Bibémus, début de printemps 3 – 2022
Mixed media on paper
164 x 251 cm / 64,5 x 98,8 in.
Diptych
Signed lower right

Rouge – 2020
Oil on canvas
194,5 x 130 cm / 76,5 x 51,1 in.
Signed, titled and dated on the back

Paysage de Bibémus 4 – 2020
India ink and acrylic on paper
Diptych
162 x 244 cm / 63,7 x 96 in.
Signed, titled and dated on the back

Orange 2, Sormiou – 2021
India ink and acrylic on paper
Triptych
120 x 200 cm / 47,2 x 78,7 in.
Signed, titled, dated on the back

Encre 59 – 2020
India ink, oil and acrylic on paper
Triptych
80 x 88 cm / 31,4 x 34,6 in.

Encre 33 – 2018
India ink, gouache and acrylic on cardboard
114,5 x 79,5 cm / 45 x 31,2 in.

Encre 56 – 2020
India ink and acrylic on paper
120 x 80 cm / 47,2 x 31,4 in.
Signed lower right

Encre diptyque – 2018
India ink and acrylic on cardboard
Diptych
118 x 129,5 cm / 46,4 x 50,9 in.
Signed lower right
Signed, dated and titled on the back

Encre 53 – 2020
India ink and acrylic on paper
120 x 111 cm / 47,2 x 43,7 in.
Signed lower right

Salomé de Fontainieu was born in 1973 in Paris. In 1997, she trained at the CEMR (European Centre for Restoration Crafts) in Venice, where she conducted experiments on the colouring of concrete.

Self-taught, passionate and versatile, she expresses herself as well through collage, ink, oil, sculpture and furniture. Her pictorial work is thus articulated around several formal axes.

For Inks, the artist uses a metal pen fixed on a long stick to draw vertical lines at a distance on paper. These parallel lines and the random spaces that separate them, give rhythm and musicality to all the paintings. There are also drips, stains and other “accidents” that animate these landscapes as well as the movements of an ongoing thought. Thus, a linear space develops before our eyes, punctuated by solid and empty spaces. The musicality and lyricism of the gesture shine through the canvas and maintain affinities between the traces of Indian ink.

Regarding the “Collages”, the artist sets up a plastic language in the form of flat areas of paint on cardboard. The cutting that follows this first gesture and the positioning of these modules lead to an exact balance. This process of occupying a chosen space is accompanied by a set of correspondences between the different colours. The cut material is then put into perspective and highlighted. As with the Inks, this architecture stems from a superposition that contributes to the depth of the painting. These works can be thought of, in a way, as static sculptures.

For her oil paintings, the gesture remains the same. Salomé de Fontainieu still favors verticals and horizontals and applies broad strokes of brushes on the canvas. The color appears in the subtle and refined transparency of the glaze, then lightens in the continuity of the gesture in order to gain fluidity. This superposition of layers of paints gives the canvas an almost tactile density.

The tone is set : minimal elegance and a strength that never goes overboard.

Where do you spend your quarantine and with whom?

I am in Marseille in a house with an exterior large enough to do gardening and landscaping projects and enjoy even more of the spring and summer to come. I am in the company of my husband and my two children, who are 14 and 18 years old. We go about our everyday activities fairly quietly.

What is the place where you spend the most of your time at the moment ?

The place where I spend the most of my time at the moment is my art studio, even if I neglected it a little during the first weeks.

How do you manage your time ?

The morning is rather intended for the chores of the house and to put my children in “study” mode, while in the afternoon I am most of the time in my workshop.

Does the quarantine bring you interesting elements in your artwork?

At the beginning I thought that it was a bit like if I was in “residence” at home and that I had to keep a testimony of this period. I then filled two whole notebooks with sketches of my children in quarantine : sometimes drawing their slumped or coiled postures in quantity of quilts, sometimes moments of hectic creative activities…

I’ve always sketched a bit, especially when my kids were younger, but with quarantine I’m currently sketching a lot again. The sketch actually allows a very quick stroke. We don’t really think about what we’re doing, the gesture follows the mind and not the eyes. By looking too much you lose the natural. It is the fact of not controling the gesture, the accident and the emergency that creates something that works.

And now I’m back in my workshop to work on more abstract ideas.

Tell us more about your current work. What is the last artwork you made ?

My current work is about a series of artworks in bas-relief, both sculpture and painting. My last artwork is a sculpture-painting which I called once finished “Window” because it was so timely.

We see on one side, a raw black wooden element which casts its shadow on the canvas while on the other side, a large painted shape accentuates its outline. By chance, these two elements placed on either side of the canvas drew the outlines of a frame. The glance bouncing back on these successive plans rushes into the luminous background. Likewise, our constrained eyes and minds search through our windows for the light of a beyond.