Emmanuelle Folligné
Britain, France
Website:
e2ma.free.fr
Social Media:
Instagram
How would you describe your work?
I do so-called easel painting, most often with acrylic. For a few years now, my work has revolved around plants, foliage and its abundance. Although inspired by my long walks in nature, all the work is done in the loneliness of my studio. I do not try to reproduce reality. One shape calls for another, one leaf calls for another. As the painting is created by looking for some kind of atmosphere, or harmony, trying not to get lost in it. The whole thing stands as a dreamlike landscape.
What inspires you?
My long walks into the forest near home inspire me. I like going there almost every day; always going to the same places and perceiving the changes, the variations of colors depending on the time of day, the weather, the season... and letting the spirit wander.
Going to painting exhibitions also gives a new breath, stimulates and puzzles me sometimes, questions about one's own work.
Can you speak about your process?
The central element of my work is the plant, the foliage. I work the interlacing, the tangle of leaves. I cover them, erase them, superimpose the different shades of green. I prepare a background most often very dark and then I venture on the canvas without sketches, trusting my hand which traces a first shape. It's like going into the forest for a long walk. I explore, I move forward, I get lost, I immerse myself until the imaginary forest reveals itself to me, sometimes bordering on the decorative, ornamental side, but my wandering on the canvas is always nourished by my memories of immersion in this nature. I invent a landscape close to reality between memory and imagination.
How did you become interested in art?
As a child, I used to draw whenever I was alone. Later on, I wanted to go to art school. I spent a few years in a fine arts school. I drew a lot again, without doing too much painting because the trend of the school was very conceptual to my great disappointment. So I explored the techniques of engraving, lithography and photography. Techniques that require a lot of patience and accurate work because there are many steps to follow but I liked these practices that I have now completely given up. It is much later, all by myself, through youth illustration that I started painting and collage. Then, little by little, the painting took more and more space, and that's all I did. I find that figurative painting has really come back for a few years and that consolidates me in my approach.
Do you have any favorite artists, movies or books?
Egon Schiele was the first painter who really impressed me at the beginning of my studies, but also Marc Chagall, Henri Matisse, Vassily Kandinsky, Odilon Redon, Frida Kahlo for the main ones. By now , the ones I do like to look at, are Pierre Bonnard, Edouard Vuillard, Félix Vallotton, for the intimate side where a certain melancholy emerges, the landscapes of Piet Mondrian also before his passage to abstraction. I am interested in many contemporary artists including Sam Szafran and his work on the fantastic deployment of philodendron leaves.
In a completely different way I really enjoyed a documentary which I watched recently and called "Finding Vivian Maier" of John Maloof and Charlie Siskel, a mysterious photographer who became famous after her death.
What advice do you have for younger artists?
I would advise them to learn how to look... The works of the past, of course, but also what is around you, what is at hand, then experiment, make again, start again, search, and this throughout life!
Is there anything else you would like to share?
Once you have found a theme, a practice, it’s very easy to take pleasure in it and make tireless variations. Right now I’m trying to expand my research to maybe more realism, larger size so as to deploy the gesture, or on the opposite way very small size to look for the intimate side of it... In any case, I’m in research, and this period of doubt and reflection is not the most comfortable but is really necessary to move forward in its approach.
