|
After
having studied Graphic Arts and Applied Arts in Paris, Mathilda
de Carpentry finds new means of expression with the
technique of reverse painting glass. In the past two decades, she
has held a number of individual exhibition in all Europe and her
paintings are in private and public collections in all over the
word.
|
 |
The
image is carried on glass in exactly the same manner as on canvas,
paper or wood ; but when we look at the image, we look through
the glass - which serves both as a support and a protective varnish.
Everything is backwards from traditional painting. The working image
is on the back of the glass. The viewer looks trough the glass on
to the painted layers. Letters, symbols, and images are painted
as the mirror image to how they normally read, in order to be correct
when the glass is turned over to be viewed. All details are painted
first and the background is last.
|
|
All lovers of medieval manuscripts
and religious books will be familiar with « illuminations », those
painted letters or miniatures with which they are ornamented.
Under Mathilda de Carpentry’s skilled
fingers, illuminations have now taken on a completely new form of
life. Using this ancient art as a basis and applying it to scenes
mainly related to the Middle Ages, Mathilda de Carpentry
has created a unique style in which the glass itself plays the primary
role. It is by painting on the glass ( from behind) that the artist
allows her modern-day imagination to run free in the service of
this bygone art, revealing its forms and colours in ways which often
totally surprise (and delight) the usually blase contemporary audience.
The increasing interest shown by the public, collectors and museums
for reverse painting glass opens a new chapter in the history of
Decorative Art.
William Laurent, Art Critic
Français
- English
|
