Artist Statement
In 2020, the exceptional crisis we suffered made me, like many people, feel suffocated. We have ceased to have access to the great outdoors, my first source of inspiration, and to people. Even when I could travel, I was only able to paint a few large paintings and mostly small figurative scenes. Real space and the pictorial representation of space, in which I am interested, both seemed to shrink.
It was while walking during spring that I had an epiphany. Staring at a blooming star magnolia, I saw a crystalline structure. This tree appeared on earth 95 million years ago. How many mystical experiences are lived at the foot of a tree?
I was amazed to discover the "tilings" of Sir Penrose (Nobel Prize for Physics in 2020), whose harmonic sequences describe a structure similar to what I observe in nature. The “Amman bars” underlying these tilings are proportional to the golden ratio and form a network of lines, which intersect at precise angles, drawing clouds of stars. They provide exciting grids for painting composition, creating new reliefs. Mathematical abstraction has become my new landscape and also offers a new key to figurative art.
I prefer to use watercolor, but I add other techniques like monotype and digital preliminary drawing, sometimes video. I include in my paintings impressions of mathematical structures, which I complete with iterations of motifs representing the echoes and the harmony of the world, or the succession of images in which we live.
Watercolor allows to mix precise marks, and stains diffusing the pigments at random on paper. It opens up to an ideal spontaneity to mark time and memory. Water and paper allow you to open up to luck, as in life. My works are on paper like a book, and tell a story.
Curriculum Vitae: recent events
In collaboration with "The Huts Magazine"
"Connectivité" juried exhibition here May 31 - June 26 2021
The Purposeful Mayo
"Rêverie" inaugural exhibition here May 5 - June 15 2021
Belmont, MA
"Hope is the thing with feathers" May 17th+
"Art Heals" juried exhibition
VirtualBGA.org April 1st- May31 2021
Cambridge, MA
Kathryn Schultz Gallery Mar 2nd- Mar18th 2021
Members Prize Show
Concord Art
Members juried exhibition Jan 14th - Feb 14th 2021
Belmont Art Gallery, Belmont MA
Portraits (online) Dec 12th - Jan 31st 2021
Beacon Gallery, Boston MA Dec 19 2020
Art Dash 2020
Workshop 13, Ware MA
NortheastFine Arts juried exhibition: traditional realism.
Sep 26 - Oct 11 2020
Cape Cod Cultural center online exhibition "Humanity"
https://www.culturalcenteronline.org
September 2020
The James Library, Norwell MA
Honorable mention for "They don't toil" March 2020
Old West Museum, Cheyenne WY
National juried exhibition "Western Spirit". March 2020
Beacon Gallery, Boston MA
International Juried show "totem"
Best in show prize February 2020
University place Gallery, Cambridge MA
Broken beauty juried exhibition January 2020
440 Gallery, Brooklyn NY
National juried show December 2019
Main Street Arts, Clifton Spring NY
National Juried show December 2019
RAA&M Rockport Art Association, Rockport MA
National Fine Arts annual juried show November 2019
South Shore Art Center, Cohasset MA
National juried exhibition "Simple Pleasures"
Honorable mention for "Thunder Roll" November 2019
Arlington Center for the arts, Arlington MA. Fall 2019
Juried exhibition "Very superstitious"
Belmont Art Gallery, MA 2019 2020
Juried exhibition
The Martin Group, Boston MA
National juried exhibition "Storytelling in textiles" October 2019
The James Library, Norwell MA
Juried exhibition "Continuum"
Honorable Mention for "Mount Washington". September 2019
Newburyport Art Gallery, Newburyport MA
Member Fall juried show September 2019
Best in watercolor prize for "Death Valley Spring"
Permanent exhibition "horticultural heroes" in Boylston, MA Tower Hill Botanical Garden (2019)
Education:
MSc Signal Processing & Communications, Imperial College, London (with Diploma) 1996-1997
MSc Telecommunications, Telecom Paris, France 1995-1997
BSc Applied Mathematics, Ecole Polytechnique, France 1992-1995
After graduating from Ecole Polytechnique and Imperial College, Fleur Thesmar worked 20 years in France in the high tech industry.
Her arrival in the United Stated in 2015 triggered an ancient passion of hers: painting. She took classes at the MFA with the studio art program. Since then, she has exhibited in international and national juried shows in Boston, Cambridge, Arlington, Newburyport, Norwell, Boylston, Brooklyn NY, Cheyenne, WY, Bourg-La-Reine, France, etc. As an emerging artist, she pursues her wish to share her intense emotions and change of perspective due to her migration in the USA.