Welcome! Accueil Gallery Galerie Store Boutique Services About Me À propos Books Livres Contact Promotion FAQ Guestbook Blog Links Liens Copyright	Promotion: Interview by Chantelle Wolfaardt / Entrevue par Chantelle Wolfaardt September / septembre 2008, South Africa About my work and career, for a multimedia school project! À propos de mon travail et de ma carrière, pour un projet scolaire en multimédia. 1. What movement (art related movement like, Surrealism etc.) would you in your own opinion regard your work to fall under? It could be many categories depending on the artwork, because each piece is different in its style. If I want to label some of my work, it would fall under: realism, surrealism, abstract work, ethnic, fantasy, decorative or expressionism… 2. What is your art style? My work is intentionally very varied, as you can see on my website www.catherinelachance.com. I can’t stay under one category. I like to experiment a lot. I can create very realistic paintings, abstract paintings, I also use mix media and collages as a way of creation, and I like to make fantasy and ethnic-influenced work. So… let’s say realistic pop fantasy dreaming spiritual work, does that make sense? :-D 3. What are your mair influences and why are these influencial in your work? Anything can be an influence for me! But I’d say, mainly nature, music, fashion, people around me, the street! What I hear, what I see, what I feel… It’s the world around me that inspires me. Sometimes I go out and take pictures and then I inspire from these images in my work. I also love other people’s comments, ideas and requests, it’s a great challenge for me! 4. How do you portray your influences in your work? I would say that I observe a lot and when I paint, I reproduce what I observed. I also decide to choose this or that color and I work on my image until I have the right atmosphere and the right feeling. I can also decide before starting to paint that I want something with a retro style, something hyper realistic – or something zen with this or that element in it. A part of my work is deliberate like that, and another part is made of unconscious influences and memories. That’s why you can notice the same kind of color or style in totally different paintings. That’s what shapes my “style”, I guess. 5. When and why did your influences devellop? I’ve been drawing since forever so it comes from very early in my life. And the most beautiful things that made me dream stayed with me. With my art, I can travel and imagine anything. I can create a whole world of my own. I can create everything! 6. What are the main colours you use why these colours? I love intense and deep colors: the various shades of azur blue, deep reds, bright yellows, fuschia, oranges, various greens… It comes from nature. I was raised in the mountains near the ocean with a lot of forests around. These colors come from sunset and sunrise, flowers, leaves changing colors in the autumn, the sea, the snow, the night shades… I’ve always been a dreamer and the colors of nature of the other countries always impressed me. That’s why I feel the need to use intense and beautiful shades to add some depth to my work. That makes something that isn’t too shy, too monochrome or too depressing. 7. Regarding the style you are using, are there anyone who influenced the use of this specific style. Maby another artist or a designer. Who was this and why did he/she inspire you? No one really marked my style, really. There would be too many people to mention, I guess, and for so many reasons. For my paintings: Definitely fantasy art, wether it’s old Lord of the Rings, Dungeons and Dragons, or paintings for old legends of the world. That was my first big influence in painting. Then came the world of music with its own universe. Nowadays I love to look at what other visual artists do, regardless of the style. For my illustration work: When I was a kid, I was “studying” how they did it at Disney and the Looney Tunes. I also liked old Asterix and Japanese cartoons from the 70’s and 80’s. For graphic design: The rock industry, definitely! I was raised in music with original vinyl sleeves and all kinds of designs from a decade to another. I love the old ways of making design, with all manual layouts. 70’s punk design is also a great influence, and 70’s psychedelic artwork and hand-drawn layouts! I love the idea of “do-it-youself” and I used it a lot in the past. To me that’s how graphic design should be! 8. Where is your art most used (commercial use of your style)? In the edition business: books for children, greeting cards, bookmarks, colouring pages, limited edition prints, etc. 9. Would you pleae send me a few of your best works to use as image reference? I sent some of my best or most popular right now. The choice was tough to do! 10. Would you please tell me more of your culture and if this also may be an influence? I live in Quebec, the French-speaking province of Canada. It’s the land of the snow! We have four very different seasons with a lot of contrasts in the weather and that changes a lot the look of the landscape! I live in Quebec City, a town that still has the architecture of the 17th century. It’s modern here but we do have our own traditions remaining: we have a winter carnival with an ice hotel, big outdoor music festivals in our (short) Summer, ancestor’s traditions such as meat pies and maple syrup, agriculture is very important too (farms, fishing, etc.). We’re halfway between the crazy rhythm of big cities and the calm way of living in villages. We want to be modern but we don’t want to kill ourselves because of stress. We’re very attached to our culture here in Quebec, especially because we’re the only French-speaking people in all of the Americas. As I said previously, I get inspired from the world and the people around me so it’s definitely an influence. I like to “study” a bit the market and get to know what people appreciate in a painting, so I try to integrate some of that with my own ideas and views. 11. Do politics influence your work, if yes how? Not at all. This is not something I’m interested in nor something that I can link to art. However, trends and thoughts from society can give me ideas, and these days we hear about preserving of the environment, the zen way of living, recycling, etc. That can be an influence. 12. Do economics influence your work, if yes how? It doesn’t influence what I paint, but it does influence the business in itself. Artist materials can become more and more expensive, for example. Here a big chain of art stores bought the competition everywhere in the province so it’s hard to find something at a cheap price. Another example is, I can loose money with the US dollar. Here I sell in Canadian dollars, but on eBay, I sell in US dollars and it was a better market a few years ago. It influences my work because I need to change my ways of marketing my products and also find different products to sell. It’s all about people having money to spend or not – if the economy isn’t going too well, people might change their priorities in what they choose to buy. 13. What do you enjoy more, designing, painting and drawing? Definitely painting. I can paint for several hours in a row and it’s just like if time had stopped. It’s a therapy, I guess. I also love the “research” part of any design project: finding ideas, visual material, making sketches… 14. What influenced you to become a designer? I was curious to know how a book was made from beginning to end. It was basically a little girl’s dream, back when graphic design still had a lot of manual work in it. I wanted to know more about layouts, typography, printing, etc. My initial dream was to become an illustrator. And for that I definitely wanted to study in graphic design to know everything about it! I like the graphic designer job. You can create an applied design from beginning to end – be it a book, magazine, leaflet, menu, business card, logo, or more. I designed a lot of websites as well because it’s something that a lot of people need but don’t know how to do. Thank you for the interview, it was very interesting! Here are some websites to visit from me: Official Website: www.catherinelachance.com Official Blog: http://cathlachan.bravejournal.com/ EBSQ Portfolio: http://catherinelachance.ebsqart.com eBay Products: http://shop.ebay.com/merchant/cath353 You can contact me at: info@catherinelachance.com See you! <Back to Promotion <Retour à la page Promotion ************ This website and its content is copyright Catherine Lachance 2008 ************