After Alexandre Lamotte, I will present another painter from Carré d’artistes.
Delphine Blais was born on February 15th, 1971 in Rouen (Northwestern France). She soon developed a taste for drawing, painting and sculpture. In 1993 she obtained a Bachelor of Arts in Bordeaux (Southwestern France). Her art career was interspersed with raising two children in the early 2000s and then animating art workshops for children as well as adults.
Her technique mixes collage with acrylic painting. She glues on a support little pieces of various old material, in particular found in flea markets: wallpaper, handwritten letters, vintage photographs, fabric or lace. Then she paints over them figures of women made of successive layers of colour. In her Carré d’artistes webpage, they have been compared to stalagmites (although I tend to think rather of a kebab). On top of their elongated body stands a tiny minimalist head. Thus all emotions are conveyed by the colours and by the posture and movement of the body.
I bought one of her works, which shows a painted woman beside a vintage photograph of a little girl. It is a painted collage on a 13cm×13cm cardboard, itself glued to a larger white support that I surrounded by a black frame. Here is the photograph I took from it; I cropped it slightly outside the collage, so that one can see its irregular border and its relief above the support.
Delphine Blais – Angèle (c2016)
I show next reproductions of two other of her painted collages, from her Carré d’artistes webpage; I chose them because they also mix painted women with vintage photographs of little girls. The first one is 13cm×13cm, the second one is 19cm×19cm.
Delphine Blais – Félicie (c2016)
Delphine Blais – Suzanne (c2016)
Finally I show a picture of the artist at work, from the information leaflet about her made by Carré d’artistes:
(Unknown photographer) – Delphine Blais at work
Links:
- Webpage at Carré d’artistes (contains a biography and several pictures of her works for sale).
- Personal Website (in French).
- Personal Facebook page and a Facebook page devoted to her art (both in French).
- A blog post with images of her work.