ELIORA BOUSQUET'S COLLECTIONS OF PAINTINGS

'Art is the way to feel, to love and to interpret the heartbeat of the universe.'
Roch Carrier

6 series of artworks
  

THE STORY BEHIND THE COLLECTION

Summary:

Since her earliest childhood, Eliora Bousquet has been fascinated and amazed by the sky, the stars, our universe which is so perfect with beauty and mystery. The abstract collection 'CELESTIAL VISIONS', made up of six series of paintings, represents the hereafter as the artist imagines it and has often dreamed of it: a timeless space where Beauty rhymes with Eternity, leaving plenty of room for imagination, the passionate mother of inspiration and creativity.

An introduction by the Artist:

When I was a child, on summer evenings, my parents, my brother and I used to sit on the bench in the garden and look at the starry sky while Dad played the guitar. I was barely 7 years old and I was amazed and totally captivated by this magical night show. I remember asking my father, who has now joined these marvelous stars in the firmament:

• 'Daddy, how far are these stars?'
• 'Very very far away! They are in Infinity!'
• 'Daddy, what is infinity?'
• 'Infinity?... Well... when you get there, it's a little further!'

I believe that since that date, I have never stopped wanting to get closer to the sky. I’ve spent my time ever since imagining this sky by transcribing, on canvases as white as the night is black, with dozens of iridescent colors, bright or melted, all the landscapes that I see in dreams, hence the title of my collection: 'Celestial Visions'.

This collection of abstract paintings was inspired by the french and english romantic poetry of the mid nineteenth century (Alphonse de Lamartine, Charles Baudelaire, Théodore de Banville, Paul Verlaine, Victor Hugo, William Wordsworth, John Keats, William Blake, Percy Bysshe Shelley,…) which particularly appeals to me because of its vibrant tribute to the beauty of nature and to simple things, because of the passionate feelings it conveys, often half way between hope and despair, and because of the existential issues it raises through the use of metaphors and surrealist images…

This collection is about the sky as I fancy it (I mean, 'Heaven') : a divinely beautiful and endless source of wonder and inspiration to me. I love this sky, for it belongs to everyone, yet no one can claim ownership of it ! It is a place without boundaries, perfect, harmonious, inaccessible ; a place between the past and the future, where imagination can flow freely…

I will therefore dedicate my 'Celestial Visions' to all those who are still children at heart and still marvel at the beauty of simple things, even though they have reached the autumn of their life. The most beautiful and priceless work of art there ever was is here, all around us ! Take time to marvel at the wonders of our surroundings, and please… be kind to our world!

'Let us dream of evanescence and abandon ourselves to the crazy beauty of things.'
Okakura Kakuzo

18 series of artworks
  

THE STORY BEHIND THE COLLECTION

Summary:

Eliora Bousquet's 'EVANESCENCE' collection is made up of eighteen series of paintings on the theme of the wind, in its spirittual sense, which we know 'blows where it wants'. In this collection, the sea represents the existence we have to cross, sometimes without seeing the horizon, often against winds and tides. The very frequent vertical movements symbolize the need to free oneself from weightlessness, from matter, to access more spirituality. The 'EVANESCENCE' collection is a romantic ode to life, in its poetical sense: a life which is all the more beautiful for being ephemeral.

An introduction by the Artist:

Isn't it peculiar how the imagery of air and breath accompanies us throughout our lives - just as we are given 'the breath of life' when we come into the world, we give out our 'final breath' when time has come for us to depart this earth. What if our lives were as ethereal as air, our fragile existence but a light touch on the canvas of the world, condemned ultimately to oblivion ? Air and the lightness and freedom of the wind are the inspiration behind this collection, which celebrates impermanence and the fragile beauty of a but ephemeral life, hence its title 'Evanescence'.

Although I have used matter and texture to create volume throughout this collection, I have deliberately done so in soft and light touches, as if I had been using watercolour, to let emotion and light shine through. My brush strokes also recall the curves of an ECG, their constant and rapid movement to and fro, linking the top and bottom of each painting. As it is in life, where we have highs and lows, harmony can and must be born of the union of opposites.

In this collection, everything I paint appears to reach for the sky. In each painting there is a movement upwards, a desire to escape gravity. In my art as in my life, I am permanently torn between my dream of an ethereal life and aspiration to infinity, and my real life, with my feet firmly on the ground, and subject to all the limitations of reality. Painting is my way of bridging these two lives, both equally precious to me, despite their contradictions.

There are also numerous references to reflections on water, and water as a mirror in this collection, inspired by Alphonse de Lamartine's poem 'Le Lac' (The Lake) : 'Constantly pushed toward new coasts like this, swept away into eternal night without return on the ocean of the ages - can we never cast anchor for a single day ? (…) O time, suspend your flight ! And you, happy hours, suspend your race : let us savor the fleet delights of our fairest days ! Let us love then, let us love ! Let us revel in the flying hour - Hurry ! Man has no harbour, Time has no shore; it flows, and we pass !'

I imagine this lake guiding us between its shores fringed with reeds, thoughtful, fragile and yet so resilient, those of whom Jean de La Fontaine said that whilst they do bend, they never break ! Stylised reeds reminiscent of long bird feathers are present as a signature in almost all of my paintings in this symbolic collection...

'Evanescence' raises existential issues and is therefore quintessentially a romantic collection, in the literary meaning of the word. There is however no place for despair here – the streaks of colour which convey the impression of a vanishing dream are neither tears nor the sign of a bleeding heart… On the contrary, I have used all the colours of the rainbow to sing this high and clear : 'Carpe Diem ! Enjoy today for all it has to offer, for time goes by and life soon runs its course'.

'Lightness of a bird that does not need to sing to own the forest - not even one tree.'
Christian Bobin

4 series of artworks
   

THE STORY BEHIND THE COLLECTION

Summary:

The quest for freedom is at the heart of Eliora Bousquet's 'POETICAL FICTIONS' collection. This collection includes four series of paintings in which are painted seascapes, birds and stylized sailboats seeking, with poetry and lightness, to escape from the framework of a certain reality.

An introduction by the Artist:

If my colors were words... I would write them with a feather! My collection 'poetic fictions' is composed of abstract works inspired by the concept that is most dear to me: 'freedom'; hence the regular reference to birds and ships, but also brushes movements that seem to dance on the canvas and trying to fly to get rid of weightlessness.

Because my artistic work is based on the thirst for liberty and the pursuit of harmony, colors that I use and associate all have a special meaning and my paintings always have a strong symbolic value, that you will discover, either by looking at the painting or decrypting its title...

Why am I talking about 'poetic fictions'? Because in my eyes, true poetry is in the eye and heart of the beholder. It is - like imagination - the ability to feel and see beyond things...

'You have to see abstract painting as you listen to music, feel the emotional interiority of the work without looking for an identification with any figurative representation. What is important, therefore, is not to see the abstract, is to feel it.'
Gerard Schneider

7 series of artworks
   

THE STORY BEHIND THE COLLECTION

Summary:

The collection of paintings 'CHROMATIC FANTASIAE', inspired by the creativity and jerky rhythm of jazz music, houses seven series of paintings. Eliora Bousquet compares this collection to a musical score where colors, like notes, swing on the canvas. On this score, each color has its place and, combined with other colors, a particular role to play in creating harmony.

An introduction by the Artist:

In my eyes, painting is a form of language per se, a unique language which stems from the musicality of the world, a language with its own rhythm and tempo and movement, associating shapes and colours to form a harmonious ensemble. Hence the title of this collection, a reference to J.S Bach's beautiful 'Chromatic Fantasiae'… After all, can one really tone down the comparison between painting and music, when both intrinsically consist of a whole range of tones, harmoniously put together? Furthermore, doesn't one speak of lyricism in abstract art ?

However if my paintings could be put to music, what you would hear would be closer to jazz than to classical music – an impulsive music, instinctive yet controlled, and improvised around leading themes ; a music all at once gentle, daring and unpredictable, and full of meaning ; in short, a seemingly simple yet complex music. In the same fashion as jazz music, the true and full messages and symbols of a painting are rarely accessible at first glance….. You can never tell how many layers and themes will appear, unless you are prepared to study the composition to the full.

For colours to work harmoniously, they must vibrate, they must dance on the canvas like so many notes dotted on the score of Life. My paintings burst with life, associating colour and movement in a vibrant, seemingly instinctive manner ? they call on one's senses to vibrate in unison.

'The artist must not copy nature but take the elements of nature and create a new item.'
Paul Gauguin

5 series of artworks
  

THE STORY BEHIND THE COLLECTION

Summary:

Matter is life. This is why Eliora Bousquet's 'NATURESSENCES' collection, which includes five series of paintings, gives pride of place to thick flat areas of color worked with knives. A stylized nature is omnipresent there. This nature is the mother of all things, the essence of life, hence the name of the collection: 'NATURESSENCES'.

An introduction by the Artist:

Fascinated by French (Alphonse de Lamartine, Victor Hugo,…) and British romantic poetry (William Wordsworth, Ralph Waldo Emerson, John Keats, Walt Whitman,…), I designed my 'Naturessences' collection as an ode to Nature, in its essence both spiritual and anchored in tangible reality, hence its name bringing together the terms 'Nature' and 'Essences'.

For the romantic poets, Nature, an omnipresent theme, is, in fact, the means by which the Creator of all things manifests his magnificence. Nature embodies the perfection of its Creator. Like the 'Garden of Eden', it is an idyllic, timeless place full of serenity. It is a place of contemplation where it is good to dream, meditate, reflect on the meaning of life, and therefore also on the place of man in the universe. In this place of meditation, the materialism of the modern world as we know it - hectic, over-connected, leaving man too little time to savor the sacred moments of silence - is not allowed.

Punctuated by the 4 seasons - the one I paint being my favorite: Spring - this nature sings of Life with a big 'L', like a sign of 'Light' ; for when we contemplate it, Nature necessarily leads to the Truth. So nature is also a Way, THE WAY. This nature is sacred.

It is to enhance this notion of life that I painted each of my works with a lot of material, with a knife, and not with a brush, unlike my other collections. However, despite this thick and structured material, the movements are dynamic and light, because life is never static.

A link between 'Naturessences' and my other collections, there is a theme and inexhaustible source of inspiration: the Wind, that I consider as 'Breath'. This creative breath which shapes the landscapes, makes the reed bend without breaking it; this breath which inspires the poet and pushes him to seek the secret meaning of things, to then bring it to light.

The poet's verses thus sing and magnify the green of nature, as if the latter were both a symbol and a vector of hope.

By means of painting, through the magical means of art, I hope, once again, to demonstrate all the power, all the supremacy of Emotion over Reason. Because, as Vauvenargues wrote: 'Reason deceives us more often than nature.'

'To see a World in a Grain of Sand and a Heaven in a Wild Flower. Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand and Eternity in an hour.'
William Blake

4 series of artworks
  

THE STORY BEHIND THE COLLECTION

Summary:

According to George Braque, 'Emotion is neither added nor initiated: it is the seed, and the work is the hatching.' Creation= Hatching. A theme recurs regularly in the work of Painter Eliora Bousquet: the quest for paradise lost. A paradise of abstract flowers populated by birds. Her semi-figurative 'RENAISSANCE' collection, made up of four series of paintings, represents an idealized Eden. In this garden located between two seas (the one above and the one below, following the separation described in the Genesis), flowers mingle with marine corals to create an eternal spring filled with hope: that of a new beginning, of a rebirth: a 'Renaissance'.

An introduction by the Artist:

Life is like a wild flower, which lives only two of our four seasons. It blooms in spring - What a magical moment of grace! - to flourish, vivacious, under the sun of Amon. Then it wrinkles on a brown autumn day ... And nothing replaces it when winter has come. In this land of ice, full of confused remembrances that no sun will embrace, hope seems to be lost. Unless a rainbow comes to light the space and draw again the covenant of the Beginning ... the promise made to Noah, somewhere near some famous Mount: a sign of renewal.

Life is a flower, lighter than a feather; I call it "Happiness" because it does not last. It is a fragile flower living far away from the bitumen, whose stem is cut, but which does not complain about it: if one cuts its stem, its green wings of bird, it is only to offer them... because life is a gift!

In the beginning autumn of my life, I still dream of an eternal spring where hope would flourish, a guarantee of blue tomorrows. "Renaissance" is the name I chose for this collection, in a node to my favorite period of history, because placed under the sign of creativity and renewal.

It represents both the "Paradise Lost" and the "Promised Land", but also the "Elysian fields", the "Gardens of Arcadia" ... A kind of new "Eden" where everything would be possible to dream and live!

Each painting invites the viewer to dream in a fairy garden bathed in iridescent light. In this garden, there is a rule: take care of every moment as a fragile flower, happiness being but ephemeral moments put in bunches of flowers ...

In the manner of French Poet Pierre de Ronsard, I invite you, through this collection, to stop, for a moment, the frantic race of Time and relive your most beautiful days of spring: "Live, if you believe me, don't wait until tomorrow: Gather today the roses of life." (*)

Carpe Diem !

(*) : Pierre de Ronsard, Sonnets for Helen

'A work of art which did not begin in emotion is not art.'
Paul Cezanne

10 series of artworks
  

THE STORY BEHIND THE COLLECTION

Summary:

Painting has always attracted Eliora Bousquet, because of the infinite variety of colors that can be created. Powerfully evocative, these colors provoke extraordinary emotions and sensations that free the imagination. By mixing colors together, with water or other liquid or solid elements, we sometimes obtain results that we did not expect. The painting becomes uncontrollable, it takes shape and lives by itself, creating a form of magic, of alchemy hence the name of the collection: 'AQUALCHEMY'. The use of blown watercolor and liquid ink pays homage to two of the artist's five most cherished fundamental elements: air and water, which are the source of this abstract and experimental collection housing ten series of paintings.

An introduction by the Artist:

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