Patrice Valota

Patrice Valota is a French painter and sculptor born in 1950 in Morienval. He paints with wax, a supple and extremely malleable material which he works like a real virtuoso. He says: “Wax never stops surprising me. It’s like a book I open and where I can feel under the page I see the next page and the one afterwards. I have the feeling I paint on the edge. Wax offers all its delicacy and transparency to the touch of the flame of my blowtorch. It absorbs colours, transcends them and guides me in my search for other hues. Wax is alive, sensual. Wax is light, it is at the heart of my story.”

"Valota proceeds like a biologist or an alchemist watching the substance react, waiting to be surprised, to see the one reaction which will determine the form the work will take. The smooth and thick pictorial layer of wax composes the backbone of the painting, recalling the delicate work of the Renaissance artists and the egg tempera technique. Valota perfectly masters wax and colour as well as composition, liberating it from all the usual optical influence of painting. This is probably what makes his work so original." 

- Jose Alvarez excerpt from the monograph "Wax" (Editions du Regard)