Electric Dream, 2020

Valérie Newland  

Self-taught since the age of 15, line/drawing, color/painting have been my tools.

I began a degree in Fine Arts, then a DEUG in Art History, before starting workshops in the city of Paris Glacière XIIIe, with Jean Zuber as my drawing teacher, then Gonzalo Belmonte as my painting master.

After five years of studio training, I collaborated with numerous artists, including Babou, Tanc, Clyde Knowland, and Benjamin Laading, all prominent figures in the street art movement. While maintaining my own unique style—my classical influences—I was able to explore different mediums and experience the city from a fresh perspective.

Curiosity about genres and a desire to understand the energy of other disciplines have allowed me to develop my artistic work.

The development and preparatory stages of painting - choosing the canvas, stretching it, priming it - are sensitive to me.

Today, committed to a minimalist approach, I approach the canvas through its content and form. This interest is akin to the support/surface movement. From these moments of appropriating space, the canvas, this common structure, has ultimately captivated me more than paintbrushes.

Why use thread? Thread is universal, the very essence of the canvas. It is the body of the painting. It is also the figure of repetition represented by the weave.

Machinery and industry assign a utilitarian function to thread. Through my repetitions, I remove its manufactured utility function. It's a means.

From my close physical struggle, rhythmic and repetitive, accepting this labor. The thread disappears, fulfilling its function. Thus, the idea of infinity suggested by the accumulation subjects the viewer to the surface's grasp, both as a field of lines and as form. Freed from the constraints of figurative representation.

The addition of these identical elements goes in the direction of the search for a new dialectic of form and its chromatic qualities.