Hélène Drénou
Hélène Drénou comes from Rennes (France), where, after studying graphic design, she decided to continue her studies at the Beaux-Arts in Brussels in the silkscreen workshop. During her five prosperous years, punctuated by an Erasmus in Geneva, she also began learning ceramics at evening academies.
Hélène Drénou's artistic passion is deeply rooted in her fascination with objects and decoration. This is evident in her frenzied accumulation of shapes, lines, boxes, and motifs, which she captures, cuts out, and transforms into pictorial compositions, often in vibrant colours. Her journey begins with drawing, then monotype, before she immerses herself in the world of oil painting. She expresses generosity and simplicity of form and colour, and seeks to convey her perpetual need to create and experiment with materials. Interior scenes and still lifes have become an essential part of her work. They allow her to reinterpret her environment and go beyond it, directly towards the image, the material, and the work of colour. The everyday motifs of her visual language - chair, vase, table, cup - remain evocative through a raw painting style but emphasise form and colour rather than detail.
For Hélène Drénou, her art is not just about the objects she paints, but about the mood and atmosphere she wishes to convey. This desire to evoke a feeling, rather than just depict an object, is at the heart of her artistic approach.