Introduction

Florence Grenot was born in Lyon in 1954, in a family of five children. Passionate from the earliest days, her experience is quite unusual. Thanks to that she always had a great freedom : she is a self-taught woman. She feeds with her travels all around the world, where she really enjoys teaching fine art to children. She draws her inspiration from her everyday life, from encounters, from her readings. She allows herself to be led by her feelings, her Catholic faith and by her life milestones. She is exhibiting her paintings, sculptures and sketches in galeries or in private exhibitions, according to opportunities. Yearly since 2012, she exhibits with Chantal Roux group at “Salon Comparaisons” (Paris, Grand Palais).

An emotion, then a mark; a line drawn in the mind, on a sheet of paper, or on my iPad; in the mind most often, a line that I transfer to the canvas, and which becomes what I respectfully call a scribble; that is to say, rather round, but especially very free and that goes towards the essential.

This is what happens when I’m in my studio, the recording in my brain of all my emotions makes me want to express with the brush forms that arise automatically.  Then I play with the colors that are in me to compose a canvas. I work in fits and starts very quickly; I rework my paintings, which usually are finished after several months; I always work on several paintings at a time.

When I start a painting, I do not have a precise idea; I am only adapting to what my brush and my subconscious produce; I am just the corrector of what appears.

A canvas reveals my relationship to the world, what I feel and what I sense. Once the canvas is finished, it’s free for the viewer to create their own story, which is why I do not like to impose tites.

Florence Grenot by Daniel Lacomme

Life in its raw state: this is what appears from the beginning in Florence Grenot’s paintings. But when the artist is sufficiently a painter, this life crystallizes in paintings loaded with inventive pictoriality, perfect, vibrant; always interesting because at Florence, as with all painters, the story told is primarily that of painting. The free, untied compositions of this artist – graphic artist, colorist and very contemporary in her approach – imposes upon us a view by her decisions that are assumed in personal way.

Despite this appearance of improvisation, all the stages remain visible in layers, in the  very measured superimposition of timeand their elaboration. The result is very moving compositions, whether on paper or on canvas.

Whether it is a landscape, still life, scenes, or figures, there emerges a “chiaroscuro of color”, passing by a way of diverting the vision, which projects this presence of beings improbable before us, radiating their presence, their being in the world, but certainly and above all their energy.

We realise, that the daring efforts of painting pay off, and that freedom is acquired in the context of accepting one’s particularities and in the utmost confidence of one’s own gifts. “What others reproach you for, cultivate it, it is yourself,” Cocteau told Picasso.

Florence Grenot by Bruno d’Yvoire

When a tree is in full bloom, it is a sign that it is under stress. To protect itself, the plant mobilizes all its reproductive capacities. Tree-growers exploit this virtue of nature by cutting vigorously the trees they have carefully planted to produce fruit.

Florence Grenot proceeds in the same way with painting. She pursues a goal. Like a plowman, she begins by painting the surfaces of her canvases with coarse brushes impregnated with dirty water and blotched with residues of old dried up palettes. This manure of paint serves as language. Her perseverance becomes the message. Before painting forms, she balances the composition with colors. The streaks of brushmarks that cover her paintings speak of the energy with which she mobilizes her whole body to express herself in broad gestures. But it also draws attention to irregular gradations, erratic roughness left by the brush at the end of the race. She likes to paint barefoot; often the hand or the finger replace the brush, and her baggy trousers allow to wipe the excess paint. And to highlight a beautiful detail that appears by a miracle, Florence will not hesitate to paint over the rest of the painting, despite all the work.

To give and to receive, such seems to be the happiness of Florence Grenot when she is painting, alone. To receive and give, seems to be the happiness that she wishes to be able to share and transmit to the spectators of her paintings. Painting of generosity.

In her workshop

Movie by MADRAYCreations – 2015