Valerie DUFAU

Valerie DUFAU Valérie DUFAU

Valerie DUFAU was born in 1966 in Talence near BORDEAUX, in the Gironde area of France. As a child she had a natural attraction to pictures and her skill at drawing was noticed early on together with her original personality, a combination of extreme sensitiveness coupled with a strong temper. She was naturally encouraged to persue art studies.Valerie DUFAU received her Bachelor of Arts in Plastics from the Fine Arts College of the University of Bordeaux in 1989. Upon completing her fine art studies she began employment at the La Jolla Contemporary Art Museum in San Diego, California. In California a familiarization with transatlantic professional art circles was developed. Upon returning to France she obtained the qualifications to become a nationally certified instructor of plastic arts with CAPES certification. It was during the yearlong certification process that her passion for real painting was awakened: liberated from academic constraints, she expressed herself in big size canvas and wood supports. In 1993 while on a yearlong sabbatical in the United States she found herself again in California, this time exhibiting in the Positive Gallery in Los Angeles. It was here that she began working to order. Valerie defines her painting as a "symbolic representational abstraction" utterly contrasting terms that convey the distinctive features of her art; contrasted matters, mat aspect and brilliance, relief and flatness and contrasted colors, natural shades and sparking colors. This subtle combination of matters and colors meets with incisive lines. Her painting is a sensory painting which arouses all our senses. She plays with monochromes, matters, signs, and styles of drawing. She likes biblical, mythological and psychoanalytical references. She works on symbolic abstraction at portraits which show character breaking away from perfect realism. Her favorite theme is the human form: one that combines flexibility, strength, subtlety, and dynamism. At times her touch is discreet, at times evanescent, at times aggressive. Always there is a relation with a tangible reality; often there is a story. The spectator will enjoy peering into this world and penetrating what is concealed behind the lines.

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