We’re delighted to have Daniele Maguet and her wonderful Galerie ZonZon in Brest, France, as an art partner with the Fictional Café. Every so often, Dany will suggest an artist whose work is going on display at her gallery for us to present here in the Café, and it is our pleasure this month to welcome Isabelle Zutter. She lives and paints in Montpellier, France, which is 10 kilometers inland from the Mediterranean Sea. Although the city has roots back to the 1300s, it is a very hip place, home to three universities and a vibrant community of the arts. Isabelle has shared her artist’s statement with us:
“My Mediterranean is in Montpellier, but it might as well be in Athens, Casablanca and Barcelona. The light and contrasts I play with rely on odors, sounds that we share with all those who grew up around the Mare Nostrum, wherever the prickly pears grow.
“My art freezes moments of life that I have chosen because they arrested my eyes, because they moved me.
“In my paintings I keep the images we know not to keep in memory or photography: details of a day in the countryside, at the beach, a portrait of a pretty person, familiar interiors, nature immortalized because my eyes loved it. My art is figurative painting because I am so far from abstraction.
“In my art are topics that I represent which take me back to my roots, to my Mediterranean childhood that never left me.”
“Dans la cuisine”
“lit defait”
“le bar”
Galerie ZonZon poster for the Isabelle Zutter show
