Discover the contemporary work of Francoise NIEL AUBIN

It was during my adolescence that I realized that drawing and visual arts were really my thing.

As I wasn't very comfortable in my own skin, I clung to this revelation and continued my education at the Jeanne d'Arc high school in Rouen, in a class called "A7", at the time, but which only allowed one and a half hours of visual arts and one and a half hours of art history, which is to say, really not much.

I worked in visual arts, just 20 times more than anyone else.

Once I left high school, I made a foray into crafts, as a silk painter.

I only took up painting again at the age of forty, when I kept a real attachment to silk painting. fluid matter.

 This is what justifies my working with watercolor and ink.

 I generally paint calligrams.

 Sometimes, it is about quotes from other authors, writers, singers, I use all my means.

 But more and more, writing either my different books, or my chronicles, or articles for my websites, certain punchlines are then imposed, I make calligrams of them, to propose visual versions as militant acts.

I am an artivist.

The invention of the word is not mine, and I do not have the author. It should be included in the dictionary. I am writing a book on the subject, which will be called "Sunday painter".

A little provocative, it goes without saying, I am questioning the reason or reasons that justify, that one day, we decide to draw, to paint, to go on stage, what do I know... And how, one day, we arrive at wanting to show what we do. I also take this opportunity to comment on the place that what is artistic should occupy and does or does not occupy in our society, and even more so today, in these troubled times. Yes, I have a bit of a tendency, as they say, to have what is called, "a big mouth"... Not only is it true, but above all, I see it more as a quality than a fault, if I observe the fact that often (always?), it is for a good cause.

I am an artist, who is interested in politics…

“Is it serious, doctor”?

I believe that Art has a mission, beyond simply entertaining us, to also be a means of expression, to convey ideas, or even to transmit messages.

Yes, I have this claim. I understand that one can be an artist and not use one's art to convey one's ideas, that is to say, from a militant angle.

One can be one, too, in another way. But I like to paint, what do you want... It has been said of me, recently, that my work, more and more, resembles graffiti... I was flattered.

No, only am I flattered, but it therefore means that what I do is understood from the angle, where I wish it... What more could you ask for? To be exhibited, in demand, and potentially to allow me to earn a minimum living from it. Recently, I saw a young man show up straight in front of one of my paintings, the one on the belt of market gardens around the towns, and quickly take a picture of it, and he ran off, without looking at the rest, with the photo in his cell phone... I was flattered!

Some artists would have been scandalized, I suppose, regarding copyright... It is true that what matters most to me is that the idea circulates, and even more so that it brings me money, I must admit.

So, yes, I claim to be an "artivist", I admit it.

In the choice of what I put in calligram, often, these are maxims, of which I am the author, which are the fruit of my work, as an author, in my books. They are often syntheses of my close inner journeys.

But if I flash on that of another, or of another who speaks to me, then, I have no problem putting it into image.