After having devoted herself exclusively to the representation of women, Flore Betty has enriched her palette by painting “the Human” in the broadest sense of the term. This is especially evident in her series “Dualis”. As an artist working both with portraiture and the nude, her work confronts the issue of timelessness and the question of equality between men and women.
It’s always been painting
Flore Betty trained in painting at the Orléans School of Fine Arts. She also spent time in the interior design program at an école in Paris. This enriching experience served her well as she later spent time at a training centre for decorative painters in Tours. Formerly self-employed, she left the work sites and devoted herself entirely to making her own art.
In 2014, she was represented by a Parisian gallery and has also exhibited her work in Seoul and Beijing. She is the winner of the Loir-et-Cher Young Talent Competition and has been awarded numerous prizes since. She often travels within France, specifically along the West coast to participate in exhibitions.
Representing the soul of her subjects
Flore Betty was inspired by the palimpsest technique and wanted to experiment with it by using scores and newspapers from the 1900's-1940’s. She typically glues her clippings on a blank canvas. These fragments are assembled in a thoughtful way, always keeping the desired final product in mind. She is careful to make sure that the inscriptions appear delicately on the skin of her subjects, which symbolically allows her to represent everything that constitutes their souls. Whether it be their knowledge, wealth, or passions, everything that has been bestowed upon her subjects, Flore Betty brings to the surface.
She does not wish for her paintings to be simple representations. Rather, they should be real vectors of emotion. At the same time, the old newspaper trimmings allow for her work to connect with other periods in time as they retain the imprints of their previous purpose. Flore Betty also integrates a marble powder coating into her paintings which she applies with an Agatha stone. This final touch gives her canvases a smooth and brilliant glaze.
As if carved in marble, Flore Betty’s models are frozen in time. And with them they retain their unique story, which through art, is made universal.
