My French Summers

Opening Thursday 30th April 6-9pm as part of Late Night Art Bangor.

Nathalie talks about the inspiration behind this body of work

Even though i was born and grew up in France, I don’t have a town I would really call Home.  I was born in Saint-Etienne, but never lived there. I grew up in Auvergne, where not being able to show a full family tree from the very valley we were in, made you an outsider. The one place that has special resonance is “le Mas”… a big house (former weaving mill) at the edge of Saint-Genest Malifaux. 

People from Saint-Etienne fled the city during the war and a dozen families (including my grand-parents) found refuge in Le Mas. Each family had one room, no running water, central heating or bathroom. Several were involved in the resistance, and the house counted one
‘collabo’… or so the story goes. After the war many kept their room for weekends and holidays. 

My mum was a baby then, and spent all her summers there. As a child, I was there for most of my summers, and the tradition continued with my daughter. Neighbours and owners changed, but the house kept is character, conviviality and a strong sense of refuge. 

I learnt to ride a bike, had my first kiss, and even got married many years later on the ‘jeu de boules’. My daughter has her own sense of the immense tranquility of the place, of rivers, trees, cows, crickets, flowers, fruit, and dragon flies. 

Years of sketchbook doodles have led to a number of prints over the years, but it is the first time I have put them together in one body of work. 

The prints are all linoprint, single layered (black and white) or multilayered, with an element of monoprinting, making each handpulled print unique. They try to capture a sense of the house, of the green countryside around it and snipets of 20 years of summers with my daughter. 

This is a glimpse of ‘my French summers’. Welcome to saint-Genest and le Mas!