La vie commence où commence le regard…
“What sight means cannot be expressed. Words can’t capture its strange essence. Life begins with sight.”
French artist Patricia Tardy made this quote from writer Amélie Nothomb her own by painting portraits focusing on the beauty and the depth of people’s eyes.
Patricia has a PhD in Physics, but she quickly gave up her career in engineering to follow her husband to Asia. She took this as an opportunity to devote herself to painting, a passion she always had.
Patricia first settled in Saigon. The generous and authentic side of the Vietnamese people was a great source of inspiration. She started painting beautiful striking portraits, and captured on her canvas all the unexplainable mysteries of the faces and souls of the people she met.
After Saigon came Shanghai and Bangkok. She was struck by the similarities but also by the subtle differences of the faces of the people surrounding her in all the different countries across Southeast Asia. She wanted to translate these emotions into paintings. She honed her style and she expressed with great emotion the beauty of some older women she met in her daily life.
In a fast-paced and changing society, Patricia tries to translate the Asian soul, adding to it a timeless shade. Her choice of deep colours creates a feeling of harmony and mystery, where dream and reality blend together. Combining a meticulous rigour and an insatiable curiosity, Patricia found in Asia a formidable ground of research. The eyes of Patricia’s characters are fascinating: the attention she pays to details and the palette of colors she uses result in real life portraits.
She also draws daily life Chinese objects inspired by the purity of the lines and the harmony of the colours which translate the melancholic and poetic side of China.
Patricia settled in Singapore four years ago. She continues to work on the gaze, and has extended it to animals, focusing only on their eyes and the graphic lines of the coat. She has also developed commissioned paintings of daily life objects for corporate organisations.
Patricia is a mother of three children.
Her work has been exhibited in Saigon, Shanghai, Bangkok and Singapore.
