Villars-sur-Ollon, 30.07.24 with Sophie Scott
Suzy Duvillard at her Vernissage, Galerie Alpine 03.08.24
Suzy - welcome to Galerie Alpine and to Villars-sur-Ollon. We're very ‘compact and bijou’ but hopefully you’ll feel the welcome and appreciation of our artistic community. Have you been to Villars before?
No, this is my first time. I love to sketch the mountains and I've been sketching near here for years, but I never got this close and it's just fantastic! I went up to Bretaye yesterday - amazing. I'm going back up today because I didn't get to take the telesiege up to the top to see the big Saype painting on the mountainside - fantastic - so I'm going up this morning.
You live in the French Alps - not far away - judging by the theme of the exhibition you take your main source of inspiration from the mountains?
I just love the mountains because they're changing all the time; the light and the colours; in the morning, at noon and at night; sunshine or cloudy; the changing seasons; winter, fall, summer and spring. I find everything I want in the mountains to paint - it's free air - it's close to Heaven. There’s just everything I find I need to express myself - so you have the mountains all around, or other landscapes, but in nature there are definitely amazing things to inspire you. I breathe in the colour and the wind and everything that inspires me and as for the colours that's my emotion, that's how I feel about a certain place, that’s how I feel about a certain time of the year, so you see when I'm painting I see what's around me and then I just translate it into colour.
So you have a close connection with the elements - your art is truly amazing! Can you describe the processes used to get to a finished canvas?
I don't know, I start off by doing a lot of sketching - in black and white to start off with, but I always feel the colour. I love to work outside ‘en plein-air’, I look at the landscape and I have my paper in front of me catching my initial responses. So sketching is a really important part of the process in getting to your final piece. You need to capture the elements that attracted you and then afterwards - when all the small paintings and studies are done (once I've done the basics) - then I start working on the details of the larger paintings. Balance is important to me, and direction; with a line, a path, a tree or a road - leading the eye into the painting, taking the viewer on a journey.
Were all these skills essentially aquired at art college?
It came essentially from a show I saw in Brooklyn when I was working as a student in their atelier and it was an exhibition on the Expressionists & The Fauvists and that was a shock. All of a sudden I realised I could put any colour I wanted in, because I'd already studied the Impressionists of course in Paris. I always loved to be outside anyway and they basically worked with light and that was very important, but it wasn't really my way with little tiny brush strokes - Pointillism? - Yes. This wasn't my way of expressing myself. And so when I was in the Art Museum in front of all these Expressionist paintings and focused, I just realised that ‘oh I can actually do whatever I want’ and that's how I ended up with my style.
You have a rich cultural history, can you explain how you got to spend time in Paris and New York?
Yes, I went to University of Brooklyn in the United States, but I won a scholarship to come to Paris to study and in a letter my professor wrote to me, he said “Suzy - go and study!”. It was the very first influence of colour and I was also at the age when tagging started (okay - what does that mean?) that is when we drew with lots of crayons on walls and graffiti! It has interesting parallels with painting - it’s a question of composition and balance, which is what I was starting to explore back then and is still an important aim for me in my work today.
I love your work - there is so much light, energy, movement and vivid colour. It's all the things I appreciate - it is truly inspirational! So your artistic influences were clearly the Fauves, the Expressionists - Do you have a favourite artist?
I feel a connection with Matisse and that era, which has been a strong influence in my work. He was always into movement and that's something that I really like, so that’s been my response too. In Paris I did lots of studies of people in the cafes, at the winter circus, at boxing matches, I also did a lot of motion drawings of bicycle riders, runners, players, animals, because I like to capture movement and that's how I learned to draw. I think when I work I like to move, because it mirrors nature and it should move on the canvas.
I see the influence perhaps of Ferdinand Hodler?
Somebody once came up to me and said “Oh my goodness that's a Hodler” and the only thing I can respond with is that “I discovered him only very recently”. But I can see the similarities of my work with his, in the use of the horizon line, flat colours and reflections in the water. I love all kinds of art and from all eras, but I like to work the way I feel and I don't really look back at one artist, so what I studied in the history of art I have in my head. and there's something to learn from all of the great artists as well as some of the new artists.
You mean it’s like drawing and painting from a pool of creativity?
Yes! I was truly inspired by an exhibition of an French artist Gabriel Loppé - he had an exhibition of his mountain landscapes and sketchbooks. You couldn't turn the pages you only got to see one page but that was fantastic. He painted en plein-air - climbing to the top of mountains. So that’s what I used to do - I used to do that when I was younger and could sit in the snow but the past 10 years I decided I didn't want to get arthritis. Except this spring, I had to sit in a little bit of snow because I had to do a painting of a place that I really wanted to do, so I sat in the snow and had to walk home with a wet bottom - ha!
I love your quirky cows? How did you learn your ceramic skills?
During my studies in Brooklyn I took classes in ceramics and then I did everything in ceramics. I've done tiling, dishes and sculptures. I also like to do adolescent figures, they're all from my head, I never use anyone to study, so it all just comes from an idea. But I do a lot of sculptures of young people in all sorts of situations because they're at the time when they're making up their mind about what they're going to do or they're completely lost and you just hope that they're going to take off in the right direction.
I also like to create a lot of angels following a visit to Poland because you see angels everywhere in Poland. They make them out of wood, pine cones, clay, anything - they’re really everywhere - and I came back and I thought I was so impressed just to see angels. From time to time I do silly things, I did a whole series on the circus once and for you I did three ceramic cows, yes, because it’s Swiss National Day soon.
Any tips for aspiring artists with the processes you use?
I really don't think it's good for an artist to continually take classes or continually look at books, I think they have to find the confidence to look at what they want to see, open up their eyes and they have to let something special enter in. Then you just draw from everything you've learned and I'm old enough to draw from everything, so I would say it's now instinctive. Because ever since I was a child, rather than writing down ideas or collecting things, I always drew what I was looking at or feeling, and that’s my way of expressing myself.
There is a beautiful energy in your work. How do you do it?
All I know is there's only two things that I will never change, I'll never leave light and I'll never leave colour - they'll always be there. Basically, all the elements I have in my paintings will stay the same, but maybe I'll get more abstract or maybe less abstract - who knows? It's all about the way you feel, but one thing I can say is that I will always stay positive and I will always privilege beauty - yes - because those two things are what we really need in life and what the world needs best at the moment. I refuse to be politically correct or incorrect, I don't think that's my place, but just to smile and enjoy painting and sometimes I have people who go “oh my God how do you find those colours” yes - but they keep looking and and they keep seeing things and then eventually they they realise “oh yeah, that's not what I see, but you seem to know” yes - it’s fantastic.
The last question I have for you is to ask what you feel most proud of in your life - that you've achieved?
Yes I can answer that - it’s my age! My days are shorter and I have less energy, but I'm looking forward to a long life because our family all lived into their 90s. So I keep saying to myself “got another 20 years at least to paint” and they say that artist do either die really early (from an overdose perhaps) or very late because they are always being expressive using their minds and imagination. I just don't want to be fragile. I did have cataracts but they took them off - so that's good. It was really funny because when I came out of the operation I thought oh my God what am I going to see? Yes, but I saw exactly what I always saw - it didn't seem to change any of the colours - thank goodness!
Suzy - on behalf of our artistic community - thank you so much for inspiring us with your fabulous exhibition at Galerie Alpine this summer.
