Interview by Celia Goodman and Zara nneka

Lucie Antoinette is a 4th year student at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts de Paris, with a focus on painting. We visited her studio at the Atelier Eitel to learn more about the world she creates inside her paintings. 

Some of Lucie’s works, along with those of her peers at the Atelier Eitel, will be exhibited from March 15-16 at the Beaux-Arts de Paris. 

Celia: Tell us a bit about your background, how did you get to Beaux-Arts? 

Lucie: I was a child that never stopped drawing, that never stopped painting. I think what's really interesting about all the people here is that they were also children that never stopped because every child is really creative. It was a dream to come to Beaux-Arts, because it’s a school that’s really made for that and to become an artist. I went to university and studied Aesthetics and Theory of Art, meaning I had a lot of lessons about philosophy of art and art history. We had to create an artwork every two weeks so it was really good training to go to Beaux-Arts. I used those three years as preparation for the Beaux-Arts “concours”. I didn’t get the Paris Beaux-Arts at first, so I went to Beaux-Arts in Nantes.  

I like to say, and my colleagues agree, that Beaux-Arts is a “school of life” because you really find yourself through art. There is a spiritual thing you’ll find in yourself, and ask yourself things like why I love this specific color, why I want to represent this type of thing or that type of thing. You find what really means something to you. But there’s also the practical part, and you can choose your schedule. You find your own rhythm, and it’s an alternate world of dreams and creativity. Even for working in art, it’s different. You don’t have a contract or a boss. With the gallery there’s no boss, and you work as your own boss. You learn a lot on your own, because in French art school, they ask you to know how to paint and have other practical skills before you apply. So you have to be in your practice before you come. We have a lot of tools here, but we are all a little bit self-taught.  

Celia: What do you think is unique about studying art in Paris? 

Lucie: The opportunities. This is a great, great school for visibility. It’s super hard to get in, so everyone is more interested in your work, and everyone has this question in the back of their head: “Oh, what did she do to get in?” So your work is really valued. 

Celia: What makes you choose painting as your main medium? 

Lucie: It’s my main medium because in painting you can choose everything. It’s like dreams, I see art as lucid dreaming because you really choose what you want to see. At the same time, it is never exactly what you want to do, for the majority of people and for me also. But there is this way in dreams you can choose the way when you’re lucid, and then something happens, and you choose where you turn from there. Each time I do other mediums it’s exciting and nourishing and it feeds my painting practice because I find new subjects. You can put together a mise-en-scene in photography but I can’t make, for example, a boat fly in the air. In painting I can. I think this is the medium where you have more freedom. It’s where I feel more free, in my imagination. 

Celia: What is that world that you’re imagining and creating? 

Lucie: It’s just about dreams. I try to create a type of humanity, a new mythology. A new visual language. [Alejandro] Jodorowsky said that art is the language of dreams and I really see it like that too. 

Zara: Do you ever feel like you’re restricted in skill? Or do you feel like you’ve prepared yourself adequately in the three years before you came to Beaux-Arts? 

Lucie: Yeah, sometimes I feel frustrated. Also I do paintings by myself, but when you do videos or other mediums, there are so many things to do it’s harder to work by yourself. You have to find people like models and people to manage things. When I do videos, it’s a long process that is frustrating because it’s also behind the computer and that’s exhausting for me. I like the material aspect of painting. There’s something spiritual about building an object and something real. 

Zara: Are you inspired by the Surrealists at all? Because they make a huge link between art and dreams also, and in many different mediums.  

Lucie: Yes, of course. I love art when it’s a kind of fiction. David LaChapelle said something incredible: If you want reality, take the bus. That’s a great sentence and I love LaChapelle as a photographer, he works in a kind of surrealist way. I love [René] Magritte too, there are some of his works that are really touching to me. He can take symbols and make them deeper, and even if you don’t know what they mean they can really touch you.  

Celia: It seems to me that you mix geometric and organic forms, humans and nature, I think it’s really beautiful. 

Lucie: Thank you so much. I try to create a cosmogony, a world. Each frame is a part of the same dream. One time, an art critic told me that in my work, everyone is in the same place: the animals, the plants and the humans all have the same status. I think that’s really interesting, he found something I didn’t see, I had never thought about my work in that way. But it’s true, humans are seen as the kings of the world and we are everywhere. So when I represent humans I like to put them near nature and animals, too. 

Zara: I noticed in a lot of your work, you use the color blue. Deep blues, electric blues, fluorescent blues… Do you feel any sort of emotional attachment to that color, or is it just something you wanted to study?  

Lucie: Both. Magritte said that blue is the color of his dreams. When I create a space, for example, between the skies and deep seas, it’s interesting to feel the blue. In abstract artwork, you can feel motion, you feel light, or like you’re flying. The blue helps me give that sensation of movement. You’re into this ambiguous image, and it’s a little blurred. This blue tells you it’s the sea, that blue tells you it’s the sky. Maybe there is a circle, you’re not sure if it’s a ball or the sun.