ISABELLE MERLET: PAINTING IN PROVENCE

Whatever the season, the horizon stretches as far as the eye can see until it bumps against the foothills of the Southern Alps, striking with blue reflections. EIn March, the almond trees in bloom give way in July to the multiple shades of lavender swaying alternately with the gold of the wheat. The immensity of this condensed Provence is so accurately rendered by the artist painter imbued with this decor since childhood.

Already very small, she grasped the colors, the scents, and the light of her Provence. She knows all its seasons, all its fields and songs, all the cross paths, the horizons that tilt, the fantasies and the secrets.

Facing Moustiers-Sainte-Marie where her grandparents rest, she has definitively settled in the heart of her vacation memories, where it all began, at the foundation of her inspiration.

 

More than 30 years ago, she opened in this village nestled against a rocky escarpment, a gallery workshop where she works in fine weather, welcomes visitors, explains her technique, and never stops reproducing the unique color chart.

When the house becomes too cold and dark, she closes it during the months of rigor and frost and goes back up to the sunlit plateau. Her artist's transhumance to join contemplation.

 Where her contemporary house stands in the middle of the family olive grove, Isabelle Merlet takes her winter quarters. She watches over the sleepy alleys. Beyond these foreground houses, the view continues over the entire valley, the gorges of Verdon and the lake of Sainte-Croix. Majestic landscapes that continue to influence the entirety of her work entirely dedicated to Provence and Haute-Provence.

 

Her knives tell the story of these lands of the Mistral, of vineyards and small cabins under all the skies. Her hand follows the twisted trunks of emblematic olive trees, rows and rows of purple lavender under the azure of the summer sky. An inner sea of soft or hard wheat at harvest time, green-gray furrows on a gently sloping ground that hibernates. Throughout the year, her eyes rest on a patchwork of colors. Her talent translates the power and delicacy of the scenes offered by the sole will of nature.

 

In her early days, she drew with charcoal, only in black and white. Then she dared, without restraint, with confidence and determination. Isabelle Merlet takes the colors, lets them out into the open air, shares their enthusiasm, trusts them. She gives them prominence, even if it means breaking the forms a bit. She does not go into details. She gets to the essence and always color occupies a primary place for this colorist. Until she achieves almost abstract areas in a figurative interpretation.

 

 

Her paintings describe lines of flight, teach lessons of things, Provençal fantasies. Everything that is from here and does not come from elsewhere.

She paints in series with different themes. She plays on the same theme, the same shade, in different formats. She composes with different thicknesses of textures that could resemble 3D.

 

On a walk, she makes sketches that she later uses with her knives. A work of paste, of material, of successive layers. She scrapes, she impasto. She mixes sensually.

 

( The canvas chosen by ARTIST for the collection Les grands chemins )

Very critical, Isabelle is not always satisfied, of course not. Very hard on herself, she then takes a step back to rework. Oil, slow to dry, gives her the time to modify, to perfect. Sometimes, 10 years later, she takes a canvas and completely repaints something else over it. She benefits from the original color, achieving very happy transparencies she hadn't thought of.

Tokyo, Geneva, Cannes, Saint Paul de Vence, Isabelle exhibits worldwide.

 

 

Permanent exhibition :

 

Galerie atelier Rue Fouque
04360 Moustiers-Sainte-Marie
Haute-Provence – France


2016 : Galerie de l’Ancien Presbytère à Moustiers-Sainte-Marie
Siège Social A.G.2.R, la Cannebière, Marseille
Galerie Enfin Veuve, Saint Paul de Vence
La Bastide de Moustiers, Alain Ducasse

2015 : Galerie Enfin Veuve, Saint Paul de Vence

Testimonials :

"I have been following the work of Isabelle Merlet for years and continue to be amazed by her paintings. She interprets the Provence I love, warm and colorful, of which she masterfully renders the particular light.” Alain Ducasse

 

“The Provence created by Isabelle Merlet is not abstract. It is a personal language full of warmth and colors. It reflects her own wonder at the light that surrounds her.” Sylvie Giono

« “Isabelle Merlet fascinates us because she is passionate, inhabited by her inner landscapes. With knives in hand, she hunts her demons, intoxicates the colors, gets the landscapes drunk, and we emerge drunk on light in the strong scents and heat of Provence.” René Frégni

“With extraordinary boldness, Isabelle Merlet took on the challenge of painting Provence using Van Gogh's light.” Pierre Magnan

1980-82 : Académie Julian, Met de Penninghen. Thesis in Graphic Arts at ESAG, Paris.

Isabelle Merlet
+33 (0) 492 74 64 64
www.isabellemerlet.com