Amélie Bertrand (1985) lives and works in Paris. She received recognition soon as she left the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Marseille in 2008.
By means of her impeccably smooth execution, the artist is able to distance herself from ideal landscapes inspired by nature, and shape decors that fall somewhere between dreams and nightmares.
The planes and surfaces of her works are assembled in a complex and meticulous manner, branching out into skewed perspectives and shallow horizons. All kinds of materials and motifs typical of our era saturate her compositions: OSB, laminates, wire mesh, tiles, fleecing, chains, foliage, camouflage etc. Colors are applied in gradients, yet always as a single layer, as if trapped on the surface of an impenetrable screen. Amélie Bertrand creates an atmosphere of déjà-vu, a contemporary ambience that is both psychological and physical within the confined space of the painting. “I never attempt to create real spaces, only painted ones.” As the missing link between Giotto and West Coast art, Amélie Bertrand combines the great traditions of painting with synthetic psychedelia. She strips back painting with her artificial perspectives and syrupy cocktails of colors, transforming contemporary visual culture into carefully controlled constructs of flat tints.
Recent solo and group exhibitions include: the Maison des arts, Center d'art contemporain de Malakoff (FR), the Center d'art contemporain de Meymac (FR), the Kunstwerk Carlshütte, Büdelsdorf (DE), the Municipal School of Fine Arts in Châteauroux (FR) the Museum of Fine Arts in Dole (FR). Her works are included in the following collections: MAC VAL, Vitry-Sur-Seine (FR), the CNAP, Paris (FR), the FRAC Limousin, Limoges (FR), the Abattoirs Musée – Frac Occitanie Toulouse (FR) and the Musée de Sainte Croix Abbey, Les Sables-d'Olonne (FR).