It’s been almost 30 years since my hands have been gliding brushes across linen canvas, but it’s already been over 50 years since my mind first contemplated it, intensely… I was only 5 years old.
With all the barriers I’ve had to overcome, my journey is already quite long, and yet, without feeling like I’m at the very beginning of my apprenticeship, the blank canvas remains a challenge, an enigma to be solved that I never tire of trying to uncover.
Firmly anchored in the illusory moment of the present, feelings flow in without my knowledge, and painting is like a communion with the energies present, those received and also those we emit.
And it is, of course, a search for the light that obsesses, that calls, and that attracts. And how can we find it except by going to encounter the shadows, our own shadows too and above all, but also the projected ones that we receive without our knowledge.And so, through color, I convey my feelings and give others possibilities, possible futures, schizophrenic visions of overly regulated daily lives. Allowing me to see elsewhere, to see differently, and perhaps allowing myself to change my future.
But also because I’m a pure autodidact and a jack-of-all-trades, I have an uncontrolled need to experiment… Attempts to move elsewhere, to explore and seek the healing release.
And, beyond color and its many facets, perhaps coming from distant memories, the smell of oil paint transports me to places where everything seems possible.
With all the barriers I’ve had to overcome, my journey is already quite long, and yet, without feeling like I’m at the very beginning of my apprenticeship, the blank canvas remains a challenge, an enigma to be solved that I never tire of trying to uncover.
Firmly anchored in the illusory moment of the present, feelings flow in without my knowledge, and painting is like a communion with the energies present, those received and also those we emit.
And it is, of course, a search for the light that obsesses, that calls, and that attracts. And how can we find it except by going to encounter the shadows, our own shadows too and above all, but also the projected ones that we receive without our knowledge.And so, through color, I convey my feelings and give others possibilities, possible futures, schizophrenic visions of overly regulated daily lives. Allowing me to see elsewhere, to see differently, and perhaps allowing myself to change my future.
But also because I’m a pure autodidact and a jack-of-all-trades, I have an uncontrolled need to experiment… Attempts to move elsewhere, to explore and seek the healing release.
And, beyond color and its many facets, perhaps coming from distant memories, the smell of oil paint transports me to places where everything seems possible.
Isabelle Barrandon 2025
