A graduate of the Fine Arts School of Saint-Etienne, the town where she lives and works, and a scholarship holder from the Casa Velasquez in Madrid in 1989, Jocelyne Clémente presents a collection of works on the theme of Landscape. The young artist explores this eminently classical theme through painting and the plastic art possibilities that it confers.
It was with landscapes that painting in the 19th century freed itself from the restrictive practices of the studio, with the artist venturing out to work on the motif. The artist’s touch and gesture is modified by this exposure to light, transforming the approach in relation to the model. Jocelyne Clémente is familiar with all the aspects of this long history, and has lovingly acquired the rules to master the form.
By exploring the morphological and luminous secrets of landscape, she can devote herself freely to this confrontation. She retraces in the studio the essence that she has retained of an imaginary landscape. A landscape in the mind’s eye conferred with a visual fullness, then clouded by an imperceptible suffering stemming from her existential relationship with nature.
These emotions are in harmony with the blues, the grey-tinted greens, and the earthy browns that flow from her palette. The colour is the vital expression of a secret fertility. The canvas is broadly brushed with oil, and then backed, working with light to suggest a particular spatiality, reinforced by the choice of framing. The collection groups together recent works with those from previous years.
The variations on the same theme illustrate an approach which is abstract and direct, with a gesture which is almost automatic, leading to a development of movement through merging and lyrical touches. A contemporary yet eternal view of landscape.
Lydia Harambourg
Text published in the Gazette de Drouot, April 2005
“The notion of landscape, the free movement of a roving eye, is that which best corresponds to the aim of the artist, whatever her theme or style" (Henri Cueco). And when you add Jocelyne Clémente’s skill and her knowledge of 19th century landscape painting, the confrontation reveals numerous secrets.
While Jocelyne Clémente walks, observes, details and takes photographs, she doesn’t paint outdoors. She paints in her studio, because painting is a ”cosa mentale”. The rigour that a mountain or a wave requires, the exactitude that demands a reflection in the water, result in a resemblance that surpasses the model. We are often struck by the changing moods of landscapes in nature; those of Jocelyne Clémente create an image that tells a story. They are also fleeting, for they move, light up, speak, and darken, depending on the tones, the colours and the values that the artist employs. She moves the light throughout the canvas, her landscapes rendering emotion in a flash. And they linger on in our thoughts filled with wonder, without us really knowing what to do with them.
Catherine Plassart 2005
Translations by Richard Pinder
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