Meeting with artist Lucy Tézier Freuchet

My name is Lucy, I'm 27 and I live between Paris and Los Angeles. In 2015, I finished my higher diploma in Applied Arts in Fashion and Textile Design, with a furious desire to paint. That urge has never left me since.

I draw a lot of rhythm. While my paintings often show large, full forms, my research is essentially a naive stroke, thrown onto the paper without a second thought. I fill sketchbooks with abstract drawings, marked with great pleasure and freedom. As if to fix a sensation in the composition, while searching for new color combinations. This process can be infinite; it's like a game. When you look at these drawings, they can seem very childlike. I think I like that idea.

What resonates most in my work is the nature and wide-open spaces of my childhood. The repetition of certain elements, such as the haystacks in the fields, the ochre dunes of Mauritania, California and its golden hills, the morning smell of the rainforest in northern India? All these forms reappear in waves in my work. When I observe a plant or a landscape, I directly deduce flat tints of color. It's automatic, I paint them in my head in a continuous abstract way.

To dare

It seems to me that our idea for a collaboration was born with this large canvas of colorful flowers I made in California in 2019. Seduced by the inexhaustible freshness of the Make My Lemonade collections, I was immediately enthusiastic about the idea of crossing our two universes.

The motif emerged quite simply and naturally. When it comes to painting these flowers, I make a lot of trips back and forth to Marseille. In fact, the entire range of my research is imbued with the light of this city. I think we mutually wanted a comforting, soft motif that could live with the garment.

Yes, it's always been there! I'd even say it's an effort for me to do things differently. My first series of canvases is already "bigger than me". I like being able to move around, step back, confront myself with another scale, walk on my canvases, observe and wait for the paint to dry... it's like a dance in the studio.

Although I generally admire painters who are capable of this, I'm far from static, sitting behind an easel going over a detail with a brush. For me, painting is sport. I paint flowers as far as the eye can see, looking for a feeling: it has to go beyond me. I try to cultivate this feeling all the time.

I have my favourite colors. Obviously, I'm directly influenced by the quality of the light and my environment. These ranges can be very different depending on where I am. It's a real exhilaration for me to look for associations. I like to make it my main subject in my canvases, and sometimes simplify my subject as much as possible to take full advantage of the quality of a color and its depth.

I always come back to Henri Matisse or Ellsworth Kelly's drawings of plants, they soothe me. The sculptures of Frank Stella fascinate me, and I often look at the paintings of Cy Twombly and Robert Motherwell for the quality of their gestures... The list goes on!  

My favorite tool is a spatula! Otherwise, my must-haves are always wide brushes, preferably used brushes...