In search of poetic power, Victorine Follana likes to paint in series of more or less realistic canvases with the subject of quiet, disturbed, numerous or not, imaginary Families. Sometimes even disjointed, as in life; but also by period Victorine Follana returns to more abstract compositions where forms and signs invent a personal mythology to highlight "The wonderful and the terrible" quoted by Rainer Maria Rilke.
Victorine Follana uses canvas, paper and cardboard as a support, oil, acrylic and wax pastels as mediums. Her references include Soutine for the wonderful reds she loves, the greats of the past such as Velasquez, Picasso, De Kooning for her freedom of expression, but also Miro and Paul Klee for their tender poetry.
There is also the Cobra movement and their spontaneity, their contempt for conventions. Painting for Victorine Follana is above all a great pleasure, it is a return to the sandbox, a moment where time is suspended, and each painting is a surprise.
Victorine Follana's work has a disturbing power of hypnosis and disturbance. The world, while it contains undeniable signs of charm and grace, is complex, insidious, devious and full of darkness. The microcosm that is the family lies and tells the truth, conceals, ambushes, caresses and strangles. The palette can be violent, it uses colours to affirm what is you, veiled.
But the black and white, with its broths of shadows, its sowing of traces, is terribly expressive. The poetry is there, poignant, moving and always free of its feathered attributes, its horrifying candour.
- Denys Louis Collaux, novelist and poet / excerpt " Le chercheur d'art " (The art researcher)