Today we’d like to introduce you to Valerie van Gelder.
Valerie, we’d love to hear your story and how you got to where you are today both personally and as an artist.
Originally from England I spend my time now between studios in Los Angeles and Paris. I began painting in France where, influenced by Asian art I worked in inks on silk. My first contact with California, where I settled for a while in San Francisco, proved to be a turning point for my artwork, introducing me to the light and space which were to become dominant features in my painting. I evolved from figurative to abstract and from inks to oils. I studied – and continue to study – Chinese calligraphy, Mandarin, martial arts and dance. Subsequently moving to Los Angeles, I began using acrylics – allowing me to work faster, giving me a greater sense of freedom.
We’d love to hear more about your art. What do you do you do and why and what do you hope others will take away from your work?
Painting for me is all about feeling. If a painting is successful it “works “on an emotional level. For this to occur, each new work has to be a totally new experience, where chance plays a large part – a fresh immersion in the dialogue between form and fluidity, light and dark, expression and emptiness, in a quest to achieve some subtle balance between chaos and order. When I start a painting, I do not have a clear idea of where I am heading. There is indeed the need to surprise myself, the work continually becoming the means to access my inspiration. As such I only know what I have been searching for when the painting is completed. And yet I am always painting the same picture! simply finding new means, new patterns to express the abstractions of light, depth, balance, harmony…. the mystery that is life….
What do you think it takes to be successful as an artist?
If my work has an aim, it would be to transmit my emotion and to do so with a minimum of means, without clutter, to suggest rather than to impose, to initiate a dialogue between my psyche and that of the viewer. When a canvas is permeated with a lot of empty space there is more room for the imagination – both mine and that of the viewer – to roam. The canvas starts off as empty space and I need it to return as much as possible to that state. Indeed, the work itself becomes an exercise in liberation. In the end the painting should appear effortless. Only then can I invite viewers to feel whatever their own personal psyche might dream up.
Contact Info:
- Website: http://www.ValerievanGelder.com
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/valvangelder/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ValerievanGelderArtist/
Image Credit:
Lisa Konczal
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