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Vanessa Gemayel’s canvases are sunny, colorful, and creative. Her well-defined shapes are designed with precision of movement and proportional depth. Her artworks bring back memories and open a radiant window onto the upcoming days. With six exhibitions to her credit, the painter, author, and DJ exhibits her painting in a solo display, Other Worlds…, at the Agial Art Gallery from June 9 to July 8.
Vanessa Gemayel’s paintings are visual representations of her auditory world and of electronic music, which is emotionally resonant and full of distortion and familiarity. They are a direct and unmediated emphasis, a movement or description between one artistic form and another, auditory to visual, sound to painting. Although they are clearly informed by sound, Vanessa Gemayel’s paintings equally exist on their own visual terms, transforming their source and giving it a visual dimension, relatable for a world of tangible things. In this world, color, shape and line, distance and depth, are delineated by the boundaries and possibilities of the visual world. Yet, Gemayel retains a connection to the freedom of sound and its spatial wandering.
How did your painting journey start ?
I discovered painting at the age of 15 at Zoha Nassif’s La maison des artistes. Poppy, who was Zoha’s previous teacher, was my first contact with this world. Despite the amazing time spent in this studio and the beautiful encounters I made there, it didn’t occur to me that I would become an artist one day. It all happened as I graduated from political science. It hit me like an accident from which I could not escape. Although the idea of being an artist came to me later in life, I have always been very attracted to what is true, free, and beautiful. I also had the chance, at the very beginning of my career as a professional painter, to meet Jean-Dominique Jacquemond, who’s now a close friend. Throughout our daily conversations about art, for more than 10 years, I discovered a new way of gazing, looking, believing in myself, living, being more courageous, expressing myself, and existing.
Why do you use painting to express yourself?
One cannot lie with painting, one cannot escape. We are entirely there, body and soul, and at the same time in that “other” place that does us good, and we have to swing between both worlds.
Why do you choose bright colors in your paintings? Is it an unconscious or a determined choice?
I think it’s more of an instinctive feel than a choice. The world is hard enough as it is… So when we can embellish it, add a nice touch to it and remind others not to despair, why don’t we?
Marie-Christine Tayah
Instagram : @mariechristine.tayah
