Nathalie Collange

Born in Africa. She is self-taught. Nathalie Collange approaches the human being without embellishment. Her painting is direct without pomp, thus delivering a pure and violent emotion ... In their “grisbrouillages” which mix the animality with the human, the works of Nathalie Collange have a substantial savagery born undoubtedly from the African roots of the self-taught artist. An ejaculation of matter and sap of black blood blurs the lines so that everything unites (including words) in a flow. This is to return to what is naked, to a meditation where anthropomorphism is no longer central in unstable and shifting entanglements impregnated with primary emotions. In the richness of thwarted movements, the images are never simple. They come from muscle fibers, the retina, memory and the primitive soul and of course from the creative gesture. We must progress through the rhythms of telluric essences. And contemplate them for a long time to identify the details. We can define this mini book as the new pagan breviary where the image is much more intimate than the narcissistic confessions. Basquiat is not far away. There is a raw knowledge, saturnal but vital, open metaphors, swings, crawls, gravitation in fidelity to the first foundations which cannot be destroyed. Better: they advance and watch us. “Nathalie Collange, fascinating or disturbing, her expressionism is very strong and very current.” - Jean-Henri Maisonneuve - The Contemporary Brigade