Beyond Evils by Layticia Audibert

« Collateral damage », « Blades sisters » or « In the heart » are not the last titles of the literary season but those of the works of Layticia Audibert, young contemporary painter whose coast does not cease to rise.

Layticia expresses on her paintings her feelings and her own vision of the world that she also accompanies with these words. Alert and teasing pen, she explains us her very inspired works, sometimes of its evils but always of its joy of living, inalterable. Using raw materials, minimalist colors but also more unexpected materials (magazine covers, feathers…), the young artist keeps inviting us into her world, as she showed us during the new opening of her exhibition on December 3, 2009 at the Artélano Gallery in Paris.

She reinvents herself in each painting and thus speaks to us about her, her sweetness but above all about us…

Layticia, a jack-of-all-trades and expressing herself through all the means at her disposal, started to express herself through painting two years ago. The sensitivity and poetry that shine through his works quickly made him known. Over time, she was able to transcend the pain that had led her to painting to go beyond it.

The first time I met Layticia, I was immediately attracted to the human being. I had already been able to appreciate her work on her site and I was quite impatient to see it with my own eyes. Invited to one of his openings, I found myself waiting right behind a group of close friends, by chance. She kissed everyone and we ended up in front of each other. She didn’t know me and she kissed me right away. And it’s all Layticia, beauty, emotions and joy of living together. Since then, she has been part of my life.

And I am lucky to be able to share with her moments of happiness, joy and sweetness. And it is these moments that I also find in these paintings as well as his outbursts. I once had the privilege of seeing an unfinished painting but the idea was already there, strong and vibrant. But let’s leave the place to the artist so that she can tell us about herself…

Self-taught, you came to painting as one enters a love story, tell us about your journey?

In this case, it is by leaving a love story that I entered painting, as one enters religion. In the priesthood. But it is also, and concomitantly, because my love was touched in the deepest part, the love towards my sister who had a serious accident, that the words and my pains came out through my brushes. Nothing prepared me for this, no training, no idea even of the idea of painting. I am a lawyer by training, an aspiring writer, and I had never considered painting. But it happened, and that’s probably what allowed me to transcend this painful experience and turn pain into « art ». Today it goes beyond that, it is sharing emotions, giving and receiving love, enthusiasm, joy of living, questioning, surprising, challenging, making beautiful, questioning. It is the affirmation of being lucky to be alive. And this is done through the prism of my paintings but also the words that are inseparable from them. This is what I call Poetry, a mixture of poetry and painting…

Is the Parisian art scene as closed as it seems at first glance?

I don’t feel qualified to answer this question because I don’t really consider myself part of the Parisian art scene. I am a free electron. I consider myself extremely privileged to meet an audience, to touch people, to share this adventure with them. For me that’s all that matters.

What is the work that speaks to you the most at the moment, or rather the one for which you would have a preference, a particular memory?

All my paintings speak to me and try to speak to others. I would say that strangely the painting that has the most evocative story is not the one that represents my usual style of work. It is indeed a figurative painting called « Collateral Damage ». It is a self-portrait. It represents me crying. There are really my tears in this painting, literally. This is a painting I did in twenty minutes, in one go. With a shout. One of the very first. I hesitated for a long time before exhibiting it at my very first opening because it had a lot of meaning for me, it was very intimate. Then I finally decided to exhibit it because that’s what art is all about, making a canvas that then spreads and no longer belongs to you. It was also a way to let go of his history. And this is the very first painting that was sold that evening. It was an anonymous buyer. Three weeks later I went to my office and found him in the hallway leading to it. The anonymous buyer was actually the person and friend I am lucky enough to work for. She did not know the history of this painting. Today, I pass by it every day. For me, it is like a cursor that allows me to measure the path taken, the road that this woman who was crying has taken. It reminds me of where I come from. Every day. And I also find in this look the determination that already existed at the time, this determination to look to the future.

You do everything, painting is not your only means of expression, writer (I do not like the term writer because it contains vain), editor for a design magazine and a fashion magazine, you do not limit yourself and approach them all. Which one speaks to you the most?

There is no one area that speaks to me the most. They are elements of a whole. My job in law is important and allows me to be in touch with « reality ». And I love this job and the people I work with. As for the writing, even if my novel is finished, it must first pass through the publishing houses. So I’m just an aspiring writer. As for journalism, it gives me the chance to share experiences, favorites, moments of life. I don’t consider myself to be in the business. I took the opportunity given to me with the privilege to do it whenever I wanted. And finally, painting is for me the opportunity to live a magnificent adventure and to share a lot of emotions on a daily basis.

None of these worlds is foreign to the other, they communicate with each other, they are the bridges that allow me to be in the world simply and to communicate my thirst for life and my passions. And why not to transmit them. When my emotions meet people’s emotions, it is the most beautiful reward.

Is there another form of expression that you would like to address?

I am interested in everything. I have an insatiable curiosity. Why not acting, singing… I recently took up the guitar but I’m anything but good and my teacher is on the verge of a nervous breakdown (laughs). To tell the truth, I don’t care if I’m good or not, what counts for me is to taste, try, approach. The painting came when I wasn’t expecting it. Today I don’t expect anything special, I create my life every day, we’ll see where this path leads. The important thing is to make the road beautiful, no matter what the destination. I am here and now with gratitude. For the rest, to be followed in the next episode of Layti’s adventure…

Do you consider that you have definitely gone beyond your ailments or rather beyond your emotions?

Yes, I have gone beyond my ailments. Absolutely, since these have been transformed into painting and my painting has itself become a means of sublimating all this. My communication and my desire to share are not in the wrongs. Even if they were the initial source, this is not what I wanted to share. My ailments are in the relationship from me to me. Painting is a vector that goes far beyond this relationship.

As for going beyond emotions, I would say no. I don’t want to go beyond that, I want to be in the emotion. Because it’s the emotion that counts. The emotion concretized by the action of the work, by the experience of the work as an experience of life. And what is there beyond the emotion ?…

I hope that these little words of the artist have convinced you and I invite you to go and see his works until January 30th at the Artélano Gallery in Paris and if you can’t come, to visit his website.

Exhibition at Artelano Gallery until January 30, 2010

54 rue de Bourgogne

75007 Paris

Open Tuesday to Friday from 10am to 1pm and from 2pm to 7pm

Saturday from 11am to 1pm and from 2pm to 7pm

www.artelano.com

www.layticiaaudibert.com