Featured Artist Eliane Pouhaer

Artist Eliane Pouhaer shares an ethereal collection of contemporary abstract art created in multiple mediums. See more of her compelling portfolio by visiting her website.

 

 

I was born in Paris but spent my childhood in Morocco among opulent vegetation and colorful landscapes.

 

 

When I was ten years old, I returned to Paris. I remembered North Africa as a lost paradise, something that couldn’t last. That idea of something beginning to disappear is the foundation of my artistic approach.

 

 

Currently, and for a long time now, I have been living in an urban environment which is as changing as nature itself and humankind.

 

 

In my practice, I take pictures in the towns and cities I pass through. I’m attracted by flashes of bright or faded colors, reflections, lights, or shadows. Later, I mix some of my snapshots construct an image that I’m going to paint using a watercolor technique.

 

 

Photography is usually used to keep memories. I prefer to work with blurry pictures or mix several sharp photos to create a look that is unstable and ephemeral, to maintain an idea of fugacity.

 

 

I manipulate pictures of urban spaces until I create an abstract image. I show a world in constant mobility, in which the idea of passage, a recurring theme, is inscribed through layers and in a metaphorical sense.

 

 

Through this process, I develop a synthesis in which the viewer is invited to question reality, and to discover her or his own.

 

 

Then comes the watercolor work. It is the technique I prefer for its transparency and fluidity. The random mixing and the part that chance plays allow me to express a sense of impermanence, which every human being will be confronted with one day.

 

 

Ambiguity grips the viewer as they examine the image, whether it’s painted or photographed. They are invited to take a visual exploration, but also an introspective one.

 

 

These two resources, the manipulation of the photography and resulting painting. can be exhibited together to show the passage between two interpretations of the same approach. Or they may be displayed separately since each of them exists by itself.

 

Eliane Pouhaer invites you  to follow her on Instagram and LinkedIn.

 

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