Justine Formentelli mostly works on paper and panels and has recently been developing sculptural pieces in papier-mâché, plaster and ceramics.
Figurative for a long time, her paintings in recent years have become more abstract, while remaining loosely informed by elements of the natural world.
For the past few years, she has turned towards abstract landscapes inspired by Surrealism, the mineral and vegetal world and cosmology. Whether drawing from climatological phenomenons, icebergs, planets or botanical references, she interrogates the frontiers of the self grounded in a body and the world around.
With thin veils of paint, she builds up transparent layers that she enjoys contrasting with more opaque shapes or thicker textures in order to create depth. A lot of erasure also goes into the process as she often covers up areas or excavate previous layers through sanding. Intention and chance are equally part of her process as she embraces accidents and responds to the marks as a conversation with the painting unfolds.
As she reflects on our mysterious interior architecture shaped by our environment and history, her combination of shapes and varied textures are suggestive of the fragile formations within us all. In each piece contrasting forms and colours are caught in motion, loaded with a sense of happening. Connections and relationships are created, and we are drawn into a state of mind as well as body.
Justine Formentelli is a French painter who spent her childhood living on the island of Reunion, the Caribbeans and Morocco. To this day, her nomadic beginning still influences her work in her colour palette, the intricacy of her marks and a sense of movement.
She received a BA (Honours) in Illustration and Communication Design at the Atlanta College of Arts in 1998 and graduated with an MA in Fine Art with distinction, from City and Guilds of London Art School in 2018. She is now based in South London and works from her studio in Brixton.
She has participated in numerous exhibitions in the United States, Europe and Dubai. Her work has been selected for the Royal Watercolour Society Open 24, the ING Prize 2022, Works on paper II at Blue Shop Cottage 2020 and is now included in Soho House art collection as well as many private collections around the world.
