Once upon a time ...
… a child, then a teenager, passionate about drawing and painting. Like many, I started to draw and paint by copying portraits and paintings. I did it for long hours, diligently and happily.
I used pencils and emptied tubes of gouache in quantity, and for whole afternoons and evenings this filled me with deep joy. However, I also remember the day when a drawing teacher explained to me that copying was not quite Art and that to be an Artist (note the big A) you had to Create (note the big C ).
Some words resonate for a long time and, even if life sometimes takes us far from our passions - there are occasions to make us find our favorite paths.
It was 30 years later, after a career as a project manager in the financial field, that painting once again took hold of my life.
First on tiptoe, in the form of painting lessons at the rate of two hours a week, to learn or relearn the basics - that is to say the different techniques for oil, acrylic, watercolor, glaze and tempera. Then, because the desire to learn was still there, I trained as a painter-decorator which enabled me to acquire the techniques for producing materials (marble, wood, etc.), spinning and trick the eye.
At this point, it seemed to me that I was technically ready and that going back to what excites me and makes me happy was the best option.
This is why, for several years, I have been transposing this know-how on my canvases while developing and refining my own techniques.
I like to build my paintings like puzzles and stage objects, furniture, animals, fish, on refined, colored or marble backgrounds, always in connection with nature.
I think and pose every detail with a search for meaning and meaning.
You can say a lot of things with a color or a shape, a shadow or a light. The successions of glazes, the thicknesses of acrylic, the mixture of oils, allow me these variations that I strive to register in a global but offbeat harmony.
I like my paintings to diffuse an atmosphere, positive and joyful waves. call for feelings of calm, fullness, balance and harmony.
On certain large formats, I invite the visitor to "come inside", to take a break... to sit down and soak up an environment, a existence and a world close to nature and serene.
I like my painting to be a direct link from the eyes to the heart because for me it is important that my Creations (with a capital C) bring happiness.
Anyway, I continue my journey on this path and I hope that this little journey through my gallery will inspire you and allow you to escape ... a painting is a tale.. .a painting tells a story...many stories.
Nadine Tardivel (NATAR)
If you are wondering why NATAR?
It was at the company where I worked for 33 years, my internal email id - the first two letters of my first name and the first three of my last name.