Muriel Dolemieux, 1954 ~ Figurative painter

'My life as an artist really began in 1973 when I graduated from “l’Ecole Nationale des Sciences Géographique” -National Geographic Sciences Institute in Paris, as an Artist Cartographer. But I always knew I would be an artist. When I was a kid I never asked myself if I was able to draw, I just did it ... It was in my blood! Some of my ancestors and parents are famous artists, such as Guillaume Coustou, Nicolas de Largillière, Nicolas and Edouard Gatteaux, Henri Viot my Great-Grand-Father, Simone de Boutray my Grand-Mother, Martine Gayet my Mother...

I was raised in France, in the very small village of "La Beslière", in Normandy. Both of my favourite occupations were drawing and riding horses. I was 17 when I move to Paris as a Cartographer student and meet my husband Patrick. We married in 1977 at “La Beslière” and lived in Paris for 5 years, in Herblay on the Seine River bank, 5 other years, and in Bullion, another small village in the Rambouillet Forest, for 15 years.
I am now a French permanent resident living in Redlands, California for almost eight years with my husband and the two youngest of my five children.

My life in Redlands has finally allowed me time to paint using my favorite medium, acrylic; color turned out to be my passion.  I enjoy the luminosity and transparency I can get with acrylic. To me, art is a synthesis of my personal feelings, the subject or colors that inspire me and my materials and techniques. Colors and simplicity are my primary goals. The changing light and shade, the moods and colors they create are the foundations of my painting.
I paint seascape which remind me lot of sailing cruises I did in heavenly islands all around the world. I can’t stop painting flowers because they offer so much diversity and subtly colors. And for three years I started painting citrus I can see every day in my yard. The yellow/orange/red palette with the infinity nuances of blue from the sky is so exiting for me. In 2007 and 2008 I got the first Prize in Citrus theme at the “National Orange Show” in San Bernardino.
I studiously walk, I search, I try, I attempt to tame colors, materials, supports … trying sometimes to become more abstract, but it make me feelling out of place.
My painting is figurative. Nature inspires me and is my means of expression to translate emotions and feeling. Nature is beautiful, I don’t try to embellish or transform it, I just see it. Art sanctifies it'.