BIOGRAPHY
Mathilde Hedouart was born in the region of French Flanders, a place rich in an inestimable artistic heritage.
As a child she spends most of her spare time drawing in the isolated family home in the countryside. She reproduces illustrations of books, invents little wacky stories on blocks of post-its, draws her little brother. The practice of drawing appears to her as the most obvious activity and she does not ask questions.
From adolescence she is passionate about alternative music, she listens daily to Sonic Youth, Pixies or The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. If she feels that her future will be more related to the visual arts and will not go through musical practice, punk rock represents a first shock that will indirectly confirm her desire to undertake artistic studies. The legendary cover of the album Daydream Nation by Sonic Youth created by Gerard Richter is the first contemporary work she discovers in 1995; a virtuoso pictorial work to illustrate a thorny and experimental music, here is an approach that seduces her.
The road ahead will be long. She decides to study art from 1998 first in an infographics school that she quickly finds too specialized, then in different schools.
After having followed for two years a teaching of the classic practices of drawing and painting in a school in Lille, she passes the ENSBA entrance exam in Paris in 2001 and enrolles in the studio of Pat Andrea. However, it is at the School of Fine Arts Tourcoing that she will graduate with congratulations from the jury.
These years of study represent a moment of exploration, approach of different types of languages and meetings that allow her to satiate a thirst for knowledge and a desire to apprehend visual creation in the richest possible way.
Thereafter, after some professional experiences as a plastic arts facilitator in primary schools and as a teacher of drawing she decides to devote herself fully to the complementary practices of drawing and painting from 2012.
Selected to participate in the last event of the Alain Godon Trophy in the city of Touquet in July 2012, she since exhibites in the cities of Lille, Villeneuve d'Ascq and Paris.
Mathilde Hedouart currently lives and works in Lille, France
ARTIST STATEMENT
Faced with the constant flow of highly formatted images, Mathilde Hedouart freely moves between figuration and abstraction to reaffirm the particular strength of the image in an original practice combining drawing and painting. The artistic activity remains the place of the jouissance and unfolds around the notion of ecstasy induced by the gesture, in explorations between enchantments and disillusions.
In her early works she uses the process of mise en abime by creating forms of visual palimpsestes from photographs from genre films of the 70s and contemporaries. The reproduction of his photos of video images in the form of small oil paintings gives rise to a round trip between the various mediums to question the notion of aura and to question the authenticity of the images.
Numerous references to the history of art as well as various references (Mr. Bungle's experimental rock music, baroque art, surrealism, symbolism, cinema, Japanese art, illuminations, Rembrandt and Picasso engravings) nourish his work and attest a strong porosity between "high" "culture" and "low culture."She seeks to reach a style both virtuoso and experimental, sometimes resuming the pictorial compositions of ancient times.
Perpetually in search of a subtle balance between form and substance, her current research leading her to experience both silver-point drawing and oil painting as digital art through Procreate software. The goal is to create hybrid works opening passageways using classical and digital tools.
She remains attached to the sensuality of materials such as paper, canvas and pictorial material.
Mathilde Hedouart places great importance on composition, rhythm and a form of harmonious or discordant musicality in her work based on a subtle practice of line and color.