COPPEY

born in Strasbourg in 1966, Caroline Coppey presented there her first individual exhibitions in 1992 and 1996.

Inthe year 2000, her exhibition at Bar-le-Duc’s public gardens and museum (also shown in Erfurt, Germany) leads to the publication of a catalogue written by Jean Lauxerois.

Since then, she made solo exhibitions in Morocco (Instituts Français in Oujda and Fez), in Paris (Ministère de l’Economie, des Finances et de l’Industrie), in Vigneux-sur-Seine (Ecole d’Art), in Hénin-Beaumont (Espace Lumière, catalogue by Jean Lauxerois), in Créteil (Galerie Municipale), in Marsal (Musée du Sel), in Fontenay sous-Bois (Galerie de l’Ecole et Galeru). She has also participated in collective shows in Fontenay-sous-Bois (Galerie de l’Ecole), Nîmes (La Vigie-Art Contemporain), Vitry-sur-Seine (Galerie Municipale) and in Paris ( Salon International de l’Estampe, Art Paris).

Attached to hold a dialogue with other artistic fields, and especially music, Caroline Coppey realised the scenography of music festival Les Musicales (Colmar) in 1999, of composer Franck Krawczyk’s concert in Festival Octobre en Normandie (Rouen) in 2002, of cellist Marc Coppey’s concert in Théâtre du Châtelet (Paris) in 2005 and she will take part in 2007 in the creation of composer Brice Pauset’s work with pictures, orchester and cello.

In 2003, the Rémy Bucciali Gallery in Colmar (France) has published four of Caroline Coppey’s copperplate engravings.

In 2004, Le Cube-ART 3000, (the art centre for multimedia creation in Issy-les-Moulineaux (France)) co-produces Caroline Coppey’s first multimedia creation: Palettes 1-300.

Her works can be found in private collections in Austria, Spain, France, Italy, Luxembourg and Switzerland, in public collections at the Barrois Museum, the Art School in Hénin-Beaumont, as well as in the Tilder company’s collection.

Caroline Coppey’s next individual exhibition will take place in October 2007 in Bibliothèque Louis Aragon of Fontenay-sous-Bois with the British Sculptor Georgia Russell and will be the occasion of a catalogue’s publication.

Caroline Coppey has completed a PhD in History, Theory and Practice of the Arts and has passed her Agrégation in Visual Arts.

She lives in Paris and works in Choisy-le-Roi.

About her painting :
« (…) Caroline Coppey’s main purpose is to reveal any given colour according to its uniqueness and diversity, in its shade of tone and value and through that, what characterizes it in the range and variation of reds, blues, yellows and oranges. In order to show how colour is just differentiation : the subtle energy and moving expansion of its difference. This is what brought Caroline Coppey to stop using ready-made paint and led her to develop her colours from pigments and powders, never allowing herself any mixing.

(…) To be « highlighted », colour is not just plain powder, pigment, spot, script but a real construction. Which can’t be reduced to what we, as a rule, mean by construction of the painting. Here, it is the colour itself, according to its strength that turns into Image and not mere « picture ». Such is the true meaning of expansion, achieving colour up to its conversion. Particularly through the original extent of the coloured patches which prior outline drawing is often left showing on canvas. Even if and more so, when colour doesn’t fill or limit itself to this contour. Beyond the unsolvable question of the relationship between drawing and painting, what matters is to give primacy to the constructive expansion strength of colour. Thanks to the variety of formats, supports and textures, the spreading of this « colour-light » digs into space and find a depth that can also come out of the grey shadows that the synthetic, translucent canvas casts on the wall. Thus, out of colour comes the spreading of the plane . »

Jean Lauxerois

Excepte from « La couleur, amplement », catalogue from the Caroline Coppey exhibit at the Espace Lumière in Hénin-Beaumont (France).

« (…) the serial principle reveals in Caroline Coppey’s work a global conception that she elaborates upon through the many variations of colour contrasts, surface textures, patch sizes and pictures format. But her painting’s main theme remains the relationship between colours, light and leftover space. The light radiates partially from the colours themselves through the often transparent, watercolourlike, bright intensity of yellow, orange, red and blue spots. This effect is produced either by the addition of marble powder, casein, emulsions of oil or acrilic paint or by the relief obtained with successive layers of paste, mixture of pigment and roughcast. And also by taking advantage of the plowed aspect of the structures resulting from the drying of the coloured matter. More over, the light breaks through the colours, emanating from a partially white background made up of shimmering meshes of gauze or silvery metal surfaces…

(…) while the actual visualisation of the motif fades away, it is replaced by the synaesthetic effects of the painting itself. Allowing us to almost physically perceive the colour patches floating freely in the brightness of the background of Caroline Coppey’s paintings. And when the opaqueness of the body of colour does not allow us to identify the visual suggestion of a landscape, for example, the coloured surfaces start to quiver : nearness and depth of dark red, distance and shining of blue and bright yellow. »

Kai Uwe Schierz, artistic director of the Kunsthalle in Erfurt

Extracts from the text of the inauguration.