Who is
Painting came to me after an accident that led to coma. Born with an artistic soul, I see brushes as openers to new worlds.
Positiveness is a set of mind. As Hugo said, light may be found in darkness. That is to me the core of resilience.
The Eiffel tower shines in the night, as a symbol of dignity and pride in days of turmoil. I am passionate about other cultures, but deeply attached to my French roots.
Musician plays on Maidan to oppose art to war, as a digniful & pacific response to violence. To me art is meant to bring part of the answer to life questioning. Many Ukrainian artists proved it to be true.
The island of Saint Honorat in the bay of Cannes has been my refuge since am a child. The silence one may enjoy there to meditate and pray is to be paired with the monastic singing.
Notre Dame de Vie garden in Mougins, where Picasso ended his life and where is humbly exhibited one of my paintings. Painting is also about connecting heaven and earth.
Aurora borealis
Marie-Aude Honorat
paints about
Resilience
Metamorphosis
&
The Victory of Life & Light
Marie-Aude in front of the statue of Saint Michael in Paris.
Deeply fond of him, she has painted several abstract paintings as a tribute to him.
Not only is he the patron of cities where she lived, such as Paris, Brussels and Kyiv,
but he is most of all also believed to weigh souls
when they present themselves "upstairs".
"As he saved me from a tragic car crash, I owe him life".
A world traveller since for ever, French born with Italian roots Marie-Aude speaks English with a twist of an Irish accent, has had a love for Eastern Europe notably Russia, and the theme of resilience from an early age.
Her doctoral thesis gained in the U.K. (Keele/Oxford universities) is at the British library in London. She dedicated 4 years of her life to study "the Self before the law in Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago". During the course of her research she met such eminent dissidents as Vladimir Bukovsky (friend of world chess champion Kasparov).
After 3 years in Ukraine, and while she had been doing some fundraising in Brussels and London for a number of years, a severe accident reminds her how the arts are inherent to her nature and that they should be granted more space in her lifetime.
Coming out of coma, she is striken with a thirst for expressing her inner world via painting. From 2010 she gradually reveals herself as a painter and understands rapidly the need to combine her love for the East, its spiritual world and the world she comes from: Cannes, the cinema, acting.
Her life changes and she takes a new turn: "art raising" take over fundraising.
A former student of American ballerina Rosella Hightower in Cannes for over ten years, Marie-Aude did not become a ballerina but a writer (she translates and adapts TV programs and films) and a painter.
She develops two personal techniques:
- "lux" as in "light" in Latin and close to the idea of luxury to portray what she likes to call "the Immortals".
The first of the series is dedicated to Grace Kelly.
The technique enables the subject of the painting to disappear under a layer of gold, as one walks away from it. This symbolizes one´s entry into eternity, as well as immortality.
Fond of gold for its symbolic of light and resurrection in Slavic icons, Marie-Aude uses it to portray artistic contemporary icons, but can also use the technique for a personal portray.
- "breath" to give life to symbols via silhouettes that emerge from the canvas.
An artist at heart since she was born, she took the name of Saint Michel after the archangel as a tribute to the patron of Kyiv, Paris and Brussels, where she lived.
She is open to special requests & likes to paint unique pieces for specific occasions.
Her favourite quote :
"Meditate. Everything is full of daylight, even the night."
Victor Hugo
