“The subject of my paintings is the city,” says painter Françoise Maillet, based in the commune of Betschdorf in northeastern France. “Everything in the city is precariously balanced, exists in a state of permanent instability. I build, destroy and then reconstruct my cities. I take them from obscurity to light, from monochrome to colour, from accumulation towards dilution and mutation, from evolution to adaptation – all these steps well summarise my work.”

Françoise, who studied at the École des Arts Décoratifs de Strasbourg and the Cours Florent drama school in Paris, creates highly original panoramas of modern life that contain storeys upon storeys of commodities – big and small, worn-out and fresh. Furniture, vehicles, clothing, toys, television sets, cabinets, wardrobes – items of daily use – fill the rooms from top to bottom. Walls and floors and ceilings dissolve and collapse and give birth to newer walls and floors and ceilings. This theatre of constant creation, decay and regeneration takes place in crowded spaces that may be taken as metaphors for the strange recesses of our minds. And the panoply of objects housed within could be read as our thoughts – ever-changing – either progressing or retrogressing.

Alternatively, these artworks could become visual commentaries on our insatiable consumerism, our excessive dependence on material things.

 

 

“Recently, I have explored what surrounds me,” continues the painter. “I have been questioning the elements of our daily life with the idea of building an inventory of our society. We live in a world that is undergoing a full transformation. The way ahead is different. I don’t think it is leading to a better place.”

Françoise’s paintings have been exhibited widely in France and Germany. Learn more about the artist on her website (www.atelier44.org) and Artmajeur profile (www.artmajeur.com/en/member/heliogene). You can connect with her on Facebook (www.facebook.com/francoise.maillet.330).

Images used with permission.