Perhaps man’s enduring fascination with art – its awesome power and influence – is that it forces us to see. The same person, who will stand transfixed before a still life, will trample wildflowers underfoot as he crosses a field, totally oblivious to his surroundings.
Charlotte Reine, an exceptionally gifted French artist, was born in 1956 in Chambon Feugerolles, Loire, France. Her lithographs, etching, oils and watercolors lend us a vision of the world that is unfettered by adult sensibilities and that restores the wonderment, simplicity and whimsy of our natural world. It is a childlike absorption with images that have not been ordered, compartmentalized and ultimately dismissed at a glance, as adults tend to do.
Reine began experimenting with her own designs on etching plates while working as a printer for her mother, the accomplish Parisian artist Gilberte Brillant, and others, while still a college student. At 20 she took part in-group shows of young French artist showcased in Paris and Nantes. The following year, she had her first one-woman show in Brussels. Exposure and acclaim in the United States followed soon after. Since 1978 she has had over 17 one-woman shows at various locations all over the world.
Charlotte Reine extrapolates the essences of her subjects with a few masterfully selected details and her images are soft and tactile. Even in the difficult etching medium, she achieves a wondrous pastel coloring.
While Reine concedes that many of her works are “perhaps abstracts forms or abstractions of forms”, there is no lack of clarity. Reine seldom revels that faces of the people in her works because distinctive features are “too distracting”.
Attempting to describe her creative process, Reine has said that the receiving paper is her central concern:
“For a moment the light passes through the color, but it always the paper which is the bases of my engraving. My fascination with its myth forbids me to cover it completely – it alone is free of all restraint and distortion.”
