It is by a fortuitous discovery of painting that Nathalie Leverger decides to devote herself entirely to art. Her sensations and observations, the starting point of her creation, give her a prolific and materialist work which allows us to discover a lyrical landscape.
A fortuitous discovery of painting
Born in 1966, Nathalie Leverger spent her childhood in the coastal port of Le Légué in the Côtes D’armor. From her father’s side, she inherited a love for the ocean, light, the horizon and vaste open expanses, while her Mother’s side brought her a passion for sewing and needlework.
Graduating from AUDENCIA, a business school in Nantes, she discovered the art of painting in 2000 by pure chance when she was gifted a box of painting oil for Christmas. Even though the revelation is immediate, it takes her three years to question her position and her professional situation within a large distribution group to devote herself exclusively to the world of Art.
Freedom and experimentation as her guiding force
While on her excursions in nature, in the city, she photographs her surroundings and then reproduces them on canvas depending on what particular sensations she’s feeling in the moment. Very often it’s a specific detail of an object, a certain material, a smell, or even a colour that is the starting point of a study. Prolific artist, she develops her work in the form of oil paintings, in textile or on paper volumes, photographs, artists’ books and coffee-table books, art installations…
It’s her pattern-work and accumulations, leaving space for « happy accidents », which allow her to experiment in complete artistic freedom.
Since 2006, she has approached various themes including that of the highway (On the Road: photographs and paintings), childhood (La cour d’école: paintings and paper sculptures), maternity (Un oiseau, une cage: silk paper and ink), frustration (L’appartement: paintings and paper sculptures), intimacy (Lucioles: sculptures & paper and textile installations, photographs, ink projects, artist books), the quest for happiness (A Beautiful Life, Les Nouveaux Amis,: paintings drawings collages), landscape (Pêcheries, Dans la Marge, Les Nouveaux Horizons, Ouessant: paintings, textile sculptures, photographs).
A poetic vision of the landscape
Nathalie Leverger paints, cuts, models, glues, knits and unknits without questioning the artistic genre. She cultivates her self-taught status to affirm her freedom to create, in a raw and instinctive materialist approach. Her refined oils, her cotton crochet traps, her origami installations, compose a poetic universe from which one retains a certain duality around the notions of power and delicacy. It is her poetic vision of the landscape that she seeks to convey to the viewer.
After meeting poet Paule Elisabeth Oddéro, in 2011, she decides to extend her plastic practice to paper and textile. While working in collaboration with Oddéro, both choosing common themes (Birds, Fireflies then Fisheries), she seeks to create works that parallel the delicacy of the author's texts.
Nathalie Leverger is one of KAZoART's 10 favorite women artists
