Clair de lune, 2016

Anne Pélissier (BERG)  

Berg is a French painter born in 1953 who lives and works in Paris, France. Under the pseudonym "Berg," meaning mountain in Goethe's language, lies an artist as gentle and tranquil as the nature she depicts. Anne Pélissier studied at the Beaux-Arts in Tours, where she studied ancient painting techniques. She opened her own copying studio, which she named Artemisia, in reference to Artemisia Gentileschi, an Italian painter of the Caravaggio school. Now working primarily in Paris, she is driven by Leonardo da Vinci's quote, "Artist, your strength is in solitude; when you are alone, you belong entirely to yourself," which she proclaims as her credo. Solitude is that special moment when the artist fully becomes one with their creation in a moment of solemn intimacy. This feeling, more than any other, is perceptible in her paintings, where a serene calm and an audible silence reign. Dull, dark colors immerse the viewer in a nocturnal atmosphere, where nature unfolds like a secret being revealed. The blurriness is punctuated on the canvases, giving the setting a disturbing and endless mystery leading either to deep meditation or to the most intriguing questions. Why is this little house lost in the middle of nowhere? Where is this secret garden? Why does this little girl occupy the entire canvas, while appearing to be in an upside-down world? So many questions, answered only by silence, leaving the viewer to form their own opinion of the artist's intentions.