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Newman Huo
2008年03月18日 - Shenzhen Daily - China
A TOTAL of 30 abstract paintings by French painter Maryline Ferraroli are being staged in OCT-LOFT in Overseas Chinese Town (OCT) in Nanshan District through May 18.
Different from painting exhibits that are held in art museums or galleries, Ferraroli’s paintings in various sizes are shown in a design shop called LSD, where trendy furniture and foreign wines are sold.
Titled “Colors,” her exhibit is a site-specific show where displaying abstract paintings has become a feature of the shop.
“People everywhere find abstract paintings difficult to understand and I know the challenge of holding my first exhibit here,” said Ferraroli, who moved to Shenzhen in 2006.
All the works on display were created by the French painter after she visited the design shop in OCT-LOFT last October and proposed holding a personal exhibition to shop owner and designer Ge Yuxi.
“I like this shop very much and I believe my abstract paintings fit in with the design shop,” said Ferraroli.
“The other reason I chose OCT-LOFT as a place for my first exhibition in Shenzhen is because it is an ideal place for people to walk around and take time to look at paintings,” she said.
An abstract expressionist painter, Ferraroli expresses herself in a combination of large-format abstract paintings (140X140cm) or a series of smaller paintings (30X30cm), where multiple layers of colors in different proportions achieve a serene and pleasant harmony with strong contrasts.
In her painting, she has been trying to avoid the trap of aggressiveness through the judicious use of pastel colors which make moderate contrasts. Here and there, the transition of color is made less definitive or blurry to add a feeling of lightness and softness.
Deeply influenced by graphic design, her paintings display their own dynamics through an effect of movement in the play of proportions of different colors.
One breakthrough she has made in her first exhibition in the city is that she has boldly borrowed the element of black ink from traditional Chinese ink painting and successfully blended it with other acrylic paints on canvas.
“Zou Wou-ki (Zhao Wuji), a Chinese master painter who lives in France, is a good example to learn about the mixture and balance between colors and black ink,” she said.
Ferraroli has developed a concept she calls “Modulez,” which is actually a composition of several independent paintings organized in a homogeneous pictorial series.
“I make frames of various sizes for my abstract paintings because I have my own standard for creating modulation with the concept ‘Modulez,’” Ferraroli said.
“I give my clients who want to buy my paintings the possibility of finding a good composition and a good rhythm with a good size for their own interior decoration,” she said.
Ferraroli has been involved in abstract painting since she graduated from the Higher School of Decorative Arts of Strasbourg in France in 2001.
When she presented her concept “Modulez” to the European Center of Contemporary Artistic Action in France in 2004, she was awarded an art studio, which made her realize she really was a painter.
Since then, she has staged numerous exhibitions in France, Belgium, Germany and Switzerland.
“So far, I have two agents in Europe, but haven’t found one in Shenzhen,” she said. “It’s difficult to find a good person with a good feeling who speaks English because my Chinese for the moment it is not really good.”
She is planning to hold exhibitions in Shanghai and Hong Kong in the near future.