Odile Sauve | Contemporary Artist: Artworks & Biography

Odile was born with a serious illness. This painful ordeal forced her to concentrate on the essentials and art became a necessity for her. Drawing and writing became an outlet for her suffering. These difficulties and human encounters would forge her character and give her unfailing determination. Art is for her a ""critical need"". Life prevailed and now Odile shines. \n Painting, illustration, sculpture, stage design; the artist has many skills. After an initial training in interior design at the Annecy School of Art (2000 to 2003), she earned her degree in art therapy and relaxation therapy. She opened a school of drawing and painting in Romans and taught art in Seynod, in the Haute-Savoie region, but a trip to Reunion changed the course of her life. Fascinated by the beauty of the landscapes and the warmth of the people, she left the continent to settle on the island in 2003 where she lives and works today. In 2011, she won the first prize at the Celimene competition. \n Open and generous, Odile loves sharing her passion by teaching drawing and painting. The Brueghels (Flemish painters, sixteenth-seventeenth centuries), Gustav Klimt (Viennese painter, nineteenth-twentieth centuries), Balthus (Polish-born French painter, twentieth century) and Pablo Picasso (Spanish painter, twentieth century), are among her main influences. Her characters recall the dreamlike melancholy of Odilon Redon (French painter, nineteenth-twentieth centuries). \n The artist invents a symbolic universe in which the work serves as a mirror of beauty. She transforms the everyday into a poetic metaphor. She intends to arouse curiosity and provoke emotions with her personal and mysterious vision of the world. Her painting is expressive and sensitive, much like the artist herself. Odile plays on colour contrasts and lighting effects. She paints the background with bright colours (reds, blacks, blues…) to better illuminate and ""bring alive"" her figures. Vulnerable witnesses to the world, they seem to call to the buried and unconscious part of man.