“Annie Chandra Malé, an artist of Indian origin, creates ever-changing pictures, far away from the outside world, displaying a great variety of forms and lines that can be compared to tempos and scales from Indian traditional music.

Playing with elasticity, Annie Chandra Malé seems to take us into the swirls of the Universe, shifting from shadow to light, from silent flat tints to vibrations of finely worked paste, into endless variations of density and brightness.

Each of Annie Chandra Malé’s paintings echoes her other mother tongue, the Ragas’, with their own codes and aura, revealing perfectly controlled poetic works.”

- Bertrand Puvis de Chavannes

Born in Brussels in 1963, Bettina SCHOPPHOFF early chose painting as a means of expressing herself. But first she had to earn her living and so she became an air hostess with Air France, which allowed her to travel to the four corners of the world. Her many voyages provided her with vivid memories, exotic encounters, rich scents, and, above all, a profound sense of color.

For many years she has lived in Fontainebleau, in the south of Paris, with her husband and their seven children, accompanied by three dogs and four cats. Well away from the noise of the road, at the bottom of a garden, flourishing with trees and flowers, she has her artist’s studio.

There, surrounded by a scene of joyous, organized confusion, where children’s toys and tubes of paint mix, her imagination, thoughts and a liberal spirit are allowed free rein. Her paintings are a reflection of her love of life, which reaches out to her, touches her, surprises her and gives her joy. She draws much of her inspiration from daily existence, though mainly from those closest to her.

The start of a new project arrives spontaneously, from something in the world that draws attention to itself. Thereafter, based upon the creative process, there is a juxtaposition of the material used, the colors suggested, sometimes bright, sometimes somber, and the emotions of the artist.

Bettina SCHOPPHOFF has served her long apprenticeship with two wonderful artists: Gisela Osswald, with whom she has acquired a certain creative liberty, and Virginie Prokopowicz who has inculcated in her a technical rigor.

Carole LOILLIER, born in Montpellier, France, on the 15th of July 1973.

I started sculpting soft stone at 17 years old, using improvised tools. I was artistically inspired by the Renaissance & Surrealism.

Very quickly I developed the need to acquire the required techniques for more figurative realizations.

For a long time my work was for individual orders and for Antique Dealers, not really authentic art-work.

Stone, because of its irremediable nature, imposed upon me a rigorous approach that gave me the understanding of Volume and Forms.

Over the last few years, clay (earth) has filled the gap in my sculpting that has enabled me to express myself at last. Since working stone in a predetermined volume taught me “architecture”, modeling clay in a free space gave me the possibility of Movement.

Thus I was able to create my art pieces that are a faithful rendering of my inspiration, and are my most intimate creations.

Little by little these creations revealed their true “raison-d’être”, their common point being their Ambivalence.

My sculptures represent opposites with a concern for coherence; Beauty & Ugliness, Rationality & Divinity, Pleasure & Pain.

Despite my sculptures being created intuitively, their finality reveals an insatiable search for Unity through Duality.

Parisian painter Catrine Baixas was born in Paris in 1951 into an artistic Catalan family. She graduated from the famous Art School ESAG/Penninghen in 1976 and worked at decorating and designing children's bedrooms, murals, wallpapers and book illustrations. Meanwhile she spent any spare time painting portraits for herself and all the children in her circle. In 1990 she created an Art Studio to help victims of slavery to express their distress through painting, using art for therapy. Regarding her own painting, she regularly exhibits her large abstract, colorful, elegant canvases in contemporary shows in France, the USA and now China.

François Effelec was born in 1947 in the west of France, in Saint Malo, by the sea. The artistic tradition was anchored well in his family: his mother was a painter of landscapes, often inspired by Brittany, his grand father sculptor and professor at « Beaux Arts Paris », and his great-grand father (Eugène Carrière) was a renowned painter and friend of Rodin. Effelec painted at first with his mother, then, having created a company of equestrian tourism while continuing to paint, dedicated himself completely to his art starting in 1997. His workshop is situated near Morlaix, in Brittany. He exhibits regularly in the various French regions as well as in Belgium.

Emilie Mengès Hillau's work is made of vertical and horizontal lines of dynamic colors. The creative process is focused on the act of painting, investing the canvas with meaning and filling the surface.

I've always been influenced by Expressionist painting, with its commitment to the physical engagement of the artist with his canvas - "action painting". The violence that is sometimes in the works of these artists or which people think they see, belongs more to the language of interiority than that of destruction. My work is influenced by the second generation of Expressionism which is illustrated by the practice of painting as an expression of individual freedom and spontaneity in the particular sense of an exclusive concentration on the deepest levels of the personality of the ego. I try to approach my work as a priority and engage in it before any introspection and without the intention of engaging in a social theme or a critique of reality. I paint with acrylic paint that provides an optimistic side, it is the art of pleasure in the unspectacular. Neo-Expressionist painting can and must live in the 21st century, as it is the art of the spiritual.

EDUCATION: Ecole du Louvre

PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES:

1970-1997 - After learning the craft of advertising for three years, first as a copywriter and then as Director of Production Images, I headed two communication agencies. In the meantime I acted as first assistant on the set of both commercials and feature films, and as a working set designer for theater.

ARTISTIC ACTIVITIES:

1987-1995 – I participated in a workshop as part of the personnel, and I painted in oils without much conviction, because this material is not very compatible with my work.

1996-1998 - I painted in a community workshop where I discovered acrylic paint, that matches perfectly the way I work and my pictorial expression.

1999-2009 - Since 1999, I have had a private workshop where I can exercise increasingly free rein over my work and where my inspiration and instincts can act instantaneously and without any constraints.

Born on the 11th of May 1959, Nadine Debien lives and works in Fontainebleau (France).

Since 1999, non-stop work has resulted in her accumulating a large set of highly colorful characters, realistic yet sometimes almost caricatures, that have been able to seduce and surprise a charmed and enthusiastic public.

Between 2001 and 2009, she had several informal exhibitions.

Despite high demand, not a single piece of art was sold, as the joint-collector refused to tear himself away from them!

2008 marked an encounter with the specialist in molding, Gerard Pigault. This led to the release of the first editions made out of resin, that has allowed greater availability for sales and exhibitions.

Today highly solicited in France and abroad, Nadine has in mind various exhibitions for the future.

My style could be qualified as organic abstract. Its recurrent theme is “the whole world in a cell”, a theme which deepens from series to series.

The title of each series gives meaning to the whole of the paintings and graphic works (engravings, drawings, lithographies) which constitute the collection.

Since 2004 there have been the following series: “acqua alta”, “avec des signes apparents” (with apparent signs), “derrière s’ouvrent des jardins” (behind, gardens are opening), “métamorphoses”, “visages-paysages” (faces-landscapes), “l’abeille en son jardin” (the bee in its garden), and today, “les valises de Noê” (Noë’s bags).

The paintings exhibited by AGORA GALLERY (NewYork) in May 2010 are part of this most recent series: “les valises de Noë”.

I feed my artistic process with tracks of life, leftovers, pieces, and the totemic spirit of some animals like the turtle, the bee…

I engage in no figurative expression but only in research of symbolic figures and patterns, creating a living vocabulary.

Born 17/03/1965 in Quimper (Breton, France), Philippe Barzic is a master craftsman in cabinet making and stone masonry.

1988 – 2000 Firma Kessler, West Germany: Pioneered in construction of Architectural ART buildings in aluminum and glass.

2000 – 2009 Provence France: Sculpture of passion, humane corps, forms and monuments (olive wood and Cararre marble.) He was invited to exhibit in multiple symposiums in France.

His work concentrates on forms and lines with sober and unhindered intent. His continual research in these areas has resulted in a perpetual refinement of this line so that the resulting expression brings the greatest of emotion along with singularity of creation.