Laura Vaillant

Born in Jatibonico, Cuba, she is a visual artist who graduated from the Oscar Fernandez Morera Academy of Art in Trinidad. Now based in Lyon, she devotes herself to creating portraits in pencil, graphite, and charcoal, with a constant focus on realism.

Her work goes far beyond mere representation: each face is a story, a suspended moment, a captured emotion. The female figure often occupies a central place, revealed with delicacy and depth.

Through black and white, she invites an intimate immersion. The absence of color refocuses the gaze on the essential: an expression, a gesture, a presence.

During her exhibitions, fairs, and competitions, she likes to invite the public to discover unique faces, bearers of identity, emotion, and experience. Each portrait she creates is carefully chosen: it is born from an encounter, an intention, and always seeks to convey a unique emotion.

She places great importance on the sensitivity of the viewer. Her work deliberately leaves space for each person's feelings, for that intimate part that we project into the gaze of another.

The models she draws are carefully selected, then patiently shaped to achieve the most accurate realism possible. Pencil, graphite, and charcoal are her preferred tools for translating this search for expression, truth, and presence.

Through her drawings, she seeks to create a universe that is both sober and vibrant, in which everyone can immerse themselves, lose themselves or recognize themselves — a silent place, yet charged with emotion.