Instant 5, 2016

Blandine Galtier  

An architect by training, Blandine Galtier practices intaglio engraving alongside the profession of graphic designer. In the 1990s, she collaborated with Françoise Jourda, a woman architect and pioneer of ecological architecture. She works for the Jourda & Perraudin agency for which she creates the scenography for several exhibitions and the graphic design of exhibition catalogs.

In Rotterdam, where she lived from 1998 to 2004, she worked as a freelance graphic designer. Back in Paris, the design of silkscreen prints for facades or building roofs, allows him to associate graphics and architecture more closely. At the same time as her independent practice, she joined the OBRAS agency as a graphic designer and web designer.

In Bordeaux, home port since 2009, she sets up her engraving workshop. This new geographical horizon coincides with his decision to devote himself to engraving. Since 2011, she has participated in exhibitions. His first personal exhibition was the result of an artistic commission from the City of Mourenx.

Blandine Galtier practices intaglio engraving, using the combination of different techniques: etching, aquatint, embossing, chine-collé, mezzotint ... When she exhibits her prints, she puts the dies opposite. it considers integral parts of the work.

Construction sites, road and airport infrastructures, are all reminiscent of landscapes shaped by Man but where he never appears.

The line highlights the main lines of the landscape or its aesthetic components, by reinterpreting it. While the drawing draws on reality, the exploration of the plastic language of engraving opens the way to abstraction. The depth of the blacks accentuated by the digging and the bite of the plate is often sought after.

The white of the paper is understood in its texture rather than reduced to the sole role of a smooth support during printing. The embossing reveals its intrinsic qualities, such as the fade of the bowl.