Could you describe briefly your journey from your place of birth to Copenhagen/Denmark today?
I grew up in Brittany, France. When I was 29 years old, I moved with my family to Oklahoma City, USA, because of my husband’s work. After 3 years, we moved to Philadelphia. We spent seven years in USA and then returned to Europe: first Italy, then Austria and after that, we moved back to France. After four years in France, we returned to Philadelphia then Washington DC for seven years before arriving in Denmark in 2013.
How have your life experiences, and your journey, influenced your art over the years?
I first started to work as a professional after finishing art school when I moved to the states in Oklahoma City. I had a lot more opportunities there than in France. I worked in a printing studio, was invited to exhibit at an art festival, showed my work in galleries and was commissioned to do some art projects. This beginning gave me the confidence to go on as an artist everyplace I had lived and to this day, Oklahoma is a place I go back regularly to keep my spirits up .
Image by Tina Vehage Lorien Photography & Art
The life that I have lead from France to the States, back to Europe, and back again to the States has nourished my personal life and my art with an extra sensibility to the feeling of aloofness. And what better than art to try to reach to other people and share my differences and try to channel them. In a global world where the risk of rejection because of religion or race is common, being able to be yourself and to express it is one way to survive and to make other people aware that they are not alone in this boat.
One series I painted before takes me to the trains and the railroads stations that I have often been at. As our bodies are physically in one place, our mind is already thinking of the next destination. This is a perfect metaphor for someone who is constantly living between two countries, two cultures and this is what I trying to express in my work. Arriving three years ago in Denmark, my first idea was to enroll in a language school because I could not imagine living in a country where I did not speak the language. This is where being an artist has always been a lifesaver – I have always been able to connect to people with the universal language of my paintings.
Going back to my childhood is a recurrent theme of mine, which over time I never stop questioning … always dealing with who I am in my art. As Gauguin wrote on one of his paintings: D’où Venons Nous / Que Sommes Nous / Où Allons Nous, or in English, Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going ?
What is your favorite piece that is being exhibited during Artival 2016, and what is the history behind it?
My favorite piece in the exhibition is “Saltimbanques“ (94 x 107 cm, acrylic on canvas collage, 2014, 20,215.00 DKK). This painting is inspired by a poem by Apollinaire who was himself inspired by a painting by Picasso. What is amazing is that art generates more art and never stops growing from one artist to another and from one person to another. Furthermore, in the past, the saltimbanques were members of itinerant circuses that went from one village to another where they were a welcome distraction, but at the same time people were afraid of them. It seems to me that this is still a feeling that art and artists provoke.
Les saltimbanques
From Guillaume Apollinaire’s (1880-1918) poetry collection, Alcools, which was first published in 1913
Dans la plaine les baladins
S’éloignent au long des jardins
Devant l’huis des auberges grises
Par les villages sans églises.
Et les enfants s’en vont devant
Les autres suivent en rêvant
Chaque arbre fruitier se résigne
Quand de très loin ils lui font signe.
Ils ont des poids ronds ou carrés
Des tambours, des cerceaux dorés
L’ours et le singe, animaux sages
Quêtent des sous sur leur passage.
What has your participation in Artival 2016 meant to you personally, and to your life as an artist in Denmark?
Through Artival I met a lot of wonderful people, artists, immigrants, art lovers, poets and more. I feel more connected to the art scene and hope to develop all these new relationships. It is very stimulating to be around people who share the same dreams.
Josette is currently working on a new series of paintings called Wild. In these paintings, she stages women and kids in untamed nature where an unexpected animal pops up next to a globe. Perplexed and elegant woman try to make sense of it. Flowers with vivid colors, snails and turtles, Chagall and Picasso cohabit in the paintings.
Josette’s paintings are part of the ongoing Artival 2016 exhibition at Global Art Gallery, Skalbakken 8A, Vanløse
Opening hours: 14-17 Thurs – Sun, until 30 October 2016
