I was raised between Stockholm, Sweden, and southern France. Since childhood, I have felt divided between the introspective, solitary culture of the vast Swedish landscapes and the more dynamic character of the French. My work embodies this personal sense of ambivalence and encourages individual reflection and introspection by using abstract, haptic forms and a limited color palette.

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I am interested in ideas of interiority and how the individual relates to the collective in an increasingly isolated world.

 

I have always been a little bit obsessed with architecture, as a tradition of humans satisfying the fundamental need of shelter and protection to a postmodern distorted structure and envelope.

 

I like to work with spatial composition, with interest for both inside and outside and the link between the two. Defining space by dividing it into inside and out is one of the human being’s ways to recognize his or her position in the environment. Architecture is created to respond to this need for inside/outside spaces. Design of inside and outside spaces and relation between them always has been one of the necessities for definition and limitation of human living spaces. How much do natural and built environments dictate the development of self?

 

Several Art Residencies in Lapland in the North of Sweden led me to create a body of work inspired by the light, the colors, nature, and the skies of Laponia. I experienced endless views and endless landscapes, a feeling of freedom, serenity, and solitude, and an awareness of the place of human beings in their environment, their identity in a fragmented and more and more isolated and individualistic world.

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I reflected on our environment and our relation to it, the impact of natural and built environments in the development of self, and that emotion, inward reflection, and the subconscious play a crucial role in creating a sense of belonging.

 

I reflect on our relationship to space, the walls, and windows surrounding us, our liberty, our capacity to escape or reinvent our physical and mental space.

 

Exploring the relationship of inside and outside and focusing on the condition of transition, boundary, and connection of those, as inside and out don’t exist without each other, made me look at this threshold as a third kind of space by converting it from a tension line to an "In-between Space."

 

Since the beginning of 2020, the world has been living through a pandemic, and we experience new social rules and restrictions, week-long lockdowns, isolation, and confinement. Questions about the inside and outside emerge, as the only way of getting out is to stay by the window. The window has become a space by itself, or is it still just an "In-between Space?"  

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About the Artist

Kerstin Paillard was born in 1977 in Paris, France, and raised between Stockholm, Sweden, and the South of France. She received a BFA in 1999 from the Contemporary Art School, Villa Arson, Nice, France, and an MFA in Art History in 2005 from the University of Montpellier, France.

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Kerstin lives and works between France and Sweden.

 

Kerstin Paillard began painting at an early age, always attuned to how color and light merged with thought. She has a long-held obsession with the skies and their ever-changing designs. She continuously refines and extends the traditions of lyrical abstraction. By experimenting with the processes and the limits of pigments, she brings together the immediacy of Abstract Expressionism, the overall consistency of form and function of Color Field Painting, and the intuitive gesture of Action Painting.

 

She works by only using pure pigments that she smears, with her fingers and hands directly onto linen canvas, laid on the studio floor. Her process is physical and tactile, engaging all of her body and senses. The gesture is intense and specific, the pace high, the composition completed in her mind, the work is made in one sitting, and the degrees of separation between feeling and fulfillment are narrow. This type of process that vacillates between structure and intuition is comparable to the primitive dances, where the orchestrated movements are countered by spontaneity and chance.

 

Kerstin Paillard creates paintings notable for their expressiveness, texture, and sculptural presence. At first glance, the images appear rather somber; however, upon further observation, the viewer becomes more aware of the light that seems to emerge from the layers of pigment.

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She has constructed a visual trope about interiority and how mental processes can bring about greater communal expressiveness. She is interested in how the individual relates to the collective in an increasingly isolated world. Her purpose lies in expressing strong emotions and deep feelings, creating a meaningful dialogue with the spectators. She wants to invite the viewers to an immaterial world filled with serenity and thoughts, embrace them with a particular atmosphere and encourage introspection and reflection.

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Artist Website: kcpaillard.com

Instagram: @kc.paillard