My name is Ombeline Defrance, I'm a young painter based in Paris and I'm about to go to Berlin for an artist residency of five months, starting in October. I'm mainly interested in the body, it is a topic that is endless to me : our incarnated reality and the proprioception of the female body. I try as much as possible to depict women' bodies with a female gaze, trying to show both power and vulnerability, identity and becoming. I deeply think that painting is a way to portray another reality than the one we have and are submitted to. As a free space, it is a way for me to explore, try, fail, re-try, seek, find, discover new things. I'm very curious with unusual materail such as liquid latex, that I use as paint, on the surface of the canvas. This is an example of a finding while I was exploring with this material for a total other purpose. This freedom comes from a non-academic teaching, a mainly self-taught practice that sometimes doesn't know how tools and materials should be used for. But this is precisely all the fun of it!

@ombeline.defrance

Process

I spent the last few months in Italy and had the chance to have access to a little studio that I organised to work in. It was a beautiful adventure of four months, I could finally work with oil (because I don't have a studio in Paris yet, meaning that I can't work with turpentine and oil as I would like it to be) and experiment many things. Every day, I had my routine in the "atelier", working directly on the wall with canvas. My installation allowed me to constantly work and create a corpus of around thirty paintings during these four months, during summer.

Influences

I'm very inspired by the encounters with other artists and it was particularly the case recently with the performance artist Beatrise Anda Ozolina with whom I extensively collaborated with, for many different projects and paintings. I deeply think also that developing friendship and support between artists is a key for developing challenging and stimulating projects. In addition, my studies in philosophy deeply influenced me, so much so I am engaged in a theoretical dialogue with my sources of inspiration before creating on the canvas. The concept of the flesh-of-the-world by the French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty is an important concept that I use for my artworks. More recently, I based a lot of my work on movement and dancing, trying to depict the extensivity of women movements in a space that is too often restrained and constrained in our world. Giving them the room to freely dance, move, expand their gestures is something that matters a lot in my current works.

Challenges

My studies in philosophy taught me that doubting can be a source of truth in the work... when it's not a radical doubt! But it happens sometimes that creativity disappears or is more silent, from time to time. To fight against it, I like to have my creative routine, which is based on getting influences from other artists, at exhibitions, galleries, on Internet also... and imitate. Imitating to learn is not a crime, this is a way to understand how others resolve problems, compose their space etc. I like to think that imitating is mimicking people we admire to better find our way. And there is such a gap between my way to do art and other artists to practice theirs! In general, I like to read and look a lot the work of others. It's an infinite source of inspiration. Music is also a medium that helps me a lot to face these moments of doubts when creation is not that obvious anymore. And life is not all about art : it shouldn't be something too absolute, rather something that takes a big space but that can find its grounding on life. I consider this as something circular, in a way. I think one of the turning point in my creative path was precisely the day I was rejected from a cinema school that used to matter a lot to me. The very same day, I was painting to get my head free of all the doubts and fears of rejection. When it happens I had this very pure and radical reaction : if the school doesn't allow me to make movies and moving images, then I will make mine from the start. This is how painting started. And since then, it never stopped because the possibilities seem infinite to me.

Reflection

As I am moving to Berlin for an artist residency of 5 months, I'm about to explore the topic of the Body at night. And for this I think that the nightlife in clubs is very interesting because it represents all the joy, excess, pleasure, desires etc that are repressed or constrained during the day. The body doesn't react the same when the light goes down andI wanted to explore this through the music world, the clubs, the raving world, and Berlin is obviously perfect for that. I will certainly do some interviews with people to understand why the night is so freeing for them and how the night protect identities that might be threatened during the day. I deeply believe that working as an artist is accessible to anyone who can deblock time and mind space for this. It is not easy for everyone but this is so important to have a creative practice in life to experience life more intensely. To me, success looks like connecting with other people : if I exhibit works and that they touch visitors, I can't be more happy, because everyone has different stories, sometimes very deep into them, and that the paintings are able to make them communicable is such a miracle. When I'm totally erased between this triangle of the visitor, the artwork and I, then the game is won : because the artwork matters way more than its creator, it's something that carries emotions that were maybe unexpected for the visitors…