Artist Interview: Nathalie De Corte
Recently our founder Svitlana Martynjuk had a pleasure speaking with Nathalie, a painter from Liège, Belgium. Nathalie’s works have the power to breathe light into the viewer, as she creates airy and flowy abstracts inspired by the plant life around her. We chat about the difficulty of being an artist in her home country, how martial arts training influenced her art making, and other interesting facts. Let’s dive in.
S: First of all, can you tell us a little bit about yourself? Your growing up and how that may have affected you becoming an artist?
N: When I was young we moved from one house to another, we changed countries and cities, sometimes I changed school twice a year. It was quite difficult for me to make connections with the new people. Sometimes I didn’t even understand their language. So I started daydreaming, staring out of classroom windows, observing a myriad of little details. Looking at flies, corners of rooms, raindrops.
This became my life and I began to create my own world. It was at that moment that I became an artist: very close and yet at the same time very far away from everything and everybody.
S: I am from Ukraine, and know that making a living as an artist in Eastern Europe is very difficult unless you can sell to the market outside of the country. How welcoming is Belgium to the arts and the art scene?
N: It’s a really hard for artists here in Belgium. All my artist friends have to do other jobs, mostly teaching. Belgium is divided into three regions and every region has is own rules, it’s own (dys)function and it’s own (less than adequately) subsided artists. It’s crazy for such a small place.
S: I really enjoy the lightness with which you depict the florals and the plants. You capture the natural movement of the branches so well without directly expressing that. How did you end up working with this subject matter?
N: I trained a lot in martial arts when I was young. I tried to find the perfect pattern of movements and I saw my body became shapes of signs in space. Then I had the good fortune to meet a Japanese women calligrapher. She taught me the basis of Sumi-e (painting with black ink).
It was a revelation for me. I found out that by calligraphy my affinity for nature and for bodily expression (through martial art) could be combined. I invented my own calligraphy, using the principles of Sumi-e. I used figurative art without copying nature—just giving life to the lines.
S: I notice that are various folds in the paper beneath your paintings. Would you to tell us a little more about that?
N: I feel I must return to simplicity, both in working and consuming. My art is made with the simplest of tools: just some ink and brushes on paper. Then I began to fold the papers in order to more easily transport them.
Of course the folds are also interesting in the way the paint interacts with them: the liquid pours into the folds and the structure of the painting is transformed. So the folds have become part and parcel of the way I compose my artwork.
S: We are strong believers that the more people discuss failure, the less significant the possibility of it becomes. In our society, we are so terrified of possibility of something not working out, that it halts all our efforts to begin with. We ask all of our interviewees if they can share a time where something (a project or opportunity) did not work out and how did you move forward?
N: Our lives are punctuated with failures. We fail at relationships. We fail as parents. We fail as artists. (Please read ‘I’ instead of ‘We’). We never seem to reach what we’re aiming for, and I am first on that list.
It’s pushing through failure that counts. For example, I don’t paint one day, and I feel like a failure. But I manage to paint the next day. Even then I don’t paint what I intended, but when I look at what I’ve done the next day I realize that it wasn’t as bad as I thought, and in fact I can actually seen something new and fresh where I thought there was only emptiness. I neglect my children in order to paint, but then when they see my work they say they’re proud of me, and I realize that it wasn’t neglect at all.
It’s changing the perceptive framework that makes all of this possible. Looking at failure a little bit differently, and suddenly finding out it’s a friend and an ally.
S: Any events, projects, or exhibits you'd like to share with the audience?
My most exciting recent experience occurred last year in July. I was selected by SaatchiArt as a « London Futures ». SaatchiArt offered me the possibility of showing my artwork with five other recent graduates at The Other Art Fair.
The show lasted only four days but I loved this very intense way of exhibiting art. I travelled to London by train carrying my folded paintings in a case. While showing them I was able to discuss them with the audience and with other artists.
But painting is not just a show or an event. For me it’s a continuous line I draw linking being a mother, a teacher and a woman. What really matters to me is finding and expressing beauty in everything we see and do.
Thank you so much Nathalie! It’s been a pleasure getting to know you!
