Art Opening at Selegie Arts Center, Singapore

SERENDIPITY II from October 3 – 7, 2019

On the walls, visitors found what curator Fiorenza De Monti said both artists spent many years away from their original homes and were drawing their inspiration from memories.

The curator Fiorenza De Monti (middle) with the two artists.

Indeed, inspired from Frédérique Stref’s and Kieu Hanh Morel’s serendipitous encounter in Singapore, the exhibition featured abstract and figurative works stemming from the artist’s memories and experiences. Both of them grew up in creative environments. Morel learnt to draw from her architect father and this skill heavily informs her current practice of painting from photographs. Stref spent her childhood in her father’s glass-making workshop in Nancy, where she became fascinated with the spellbinding translucent density of Pâte de verre, a fascination that later influenced her to turn to encaustic painting.

Morel’s oil and acrylic paintings express a nostalgia for her homeland through idealised depictions of its rural world and inhabitants, in the traditional Vietnamese figurative style. Stref’s encaustic paintings capture the impressions gathered by her senses in the different countries she visited, resulting in images that are both abstract and tangible.

The exhibition brought together artworks inspired from different cultural backgrounds, sensibilities and techniques, which confront the viewer with personal outlooks on the world.

Climbing the steps up and emerging into space dominated by light and permeated by sounds of visitors interacting with art, you knew you’re at Selegie Arts Center.

Painter Kieu Hanh Morel, Singapore

„I am originally from Vietnam that I left in 2003 to come to live in France. As soon as I arrived Paris I took Roman calligraphy courses with the calligrapher Bruno Gigarel at the Calligraphy Workshop of Saint-Germain des Prés in Paris 6e, as well as Art courses at the Rueil-Malmaison School of Arts, and then with the artist Dominique Schmitt in Rueil Malmaison to discover new techniques and master the mix of colors and materials.

I have also been attending Chinese calligraphy courses with Mr. Cheng (a local Chinese calligrapher) during my stay in Hong Kong from 2014 to 2017, till I moved to Singapore with my husband. During more than 10 years in Paris, I have been participating in a number of exhibitions and two memorable Cow Parades (2012, 2015) events where I could allow my inspiration to transform and design three cows before they were sold for charity.

I love mixing in some of my paintings the art of calligraphy together with pictural inspiration. My source of inspiration comes from my homeland, Vietnam, with its typical colors, smells and everyday life scenes. I am happy with a brush in my hand, capturing those simple – albeit loaded with emotions – moments. My quest eventually is to encapsulate life into my paintings. With oil or acrylic, brush, spatula or palette knife, the material is deposited in thick layers to give intensity to the harmony of colors in addition to relief. My paintings are inspired by the mystery of nature and life’s experience and emotions: they are in tribute to life, to nature, to epicurean pleasures.

Let me tell you a bit more about my former life in Vietnam. I was born in 1958. My childhood was mostly in Dalat where I spent my studies in French schools such as Couvent des Oiseaux and Lycée Yersin. My father was an architect and used to design furnitures for the Royal Palace in Dalat. He was the one feeding my interest for arts.

I moved to Saigon with the family in 1980. Like many Vietnamese the family got dispersed in several continents and countries after the war. I used to work for Moet Hennessy in Saigon where I met my husband. As you read before I left Vietnam for France in 2003 and started my art courses in Paris. I did my first exhibition at the Marché des Peintres in 2004 in Rueil-Malmaison (close to Paris), followed by 2 to 3 exhibitions every year in Paris and around from 2004 to 2014.

I met French artist Frédérique Stref in Singapore last year. And soon we will have our first exhibition together.“

Kieu Hanh Morel

sl4artglobal wishes you both good luck on this endeavour. Looking forward to hear from you again. And, of course: Waiting for the opening!

Wax Artist Frédérique Stref, Singapore

I met Frédérique Stref in Thailand. We were both in the same idyllic retreat and she told me about her life in Singapore. After a certain while we talked about our work and our passions. She loves creating wax paintings. Wax with different colours. I never heard of this technique before. I was really surprised when she showed me photos of her art. Something special, came in my mind. And perfect for sl4artglobal.

May I introduce you: The French artist Frédérique Stref.

She was born in 1967 in Nancy, the French capital of Art Nouveau. Thanks to her father, she grew up in an artistic environment and was exposed to several art techniques, among which was the kiln casting technique known as pâte de verre. Throughout her youth, her father would regularly visit the family at the French Riviera, drawing inspiration from the incomparable colour shades and light of this sunny region.

In 1996, Fédérique moved to Brussels, where she trained as a Spa and massage therapist. In the Belgian capital she was, once more, surrounded by remarkable Art Nouveau architecture. Shortly after she would settle in Copenhagen and then in Den Haag. Both the organic lines of Art Nouveau and the elegant lines of Danish and Dutch design bore a strong influence on her art. While she was living in the Netherlands, Frédérique stumbled upon artworks made with encaustic in an art gallery in Amsterdam.

The sensuous texture of the medium struck a chord with her, bringing back to her memory the endearing translucency of the glass sculptures that her father used to create in his workshop. The artist immediately sensed that the texture and radiance of encaustic suited her sensory nature, thereby enabling her to closely render her deepest feelings.

In 2009 Frédérique moved to Asia. In Hong Kong, she came across the work of Indian – American artist Natvar Bhavsar. Together with Mark Rothko, whose ability to express profound emotion through colour left a deep impression on her several years earlier in London, the sensual resonance of Natvar Bhavsar’ paintings planted the seed of her own art practice. The artist who, back in 1998, had discovered by serendipity the fragrant and malleable medium of encaustic, had now found her source of inspiration in the yearning for transcendence and the infinite rendered in the work of Colour Field masters.

With a clear idea of what she was aiming at in her own art practice, Frédérique started looking for an encaustic master. She found him in the person of Gary Simmons, who lived in the French Riviera. The artist traveled back to this much-loved region, eager to start a new chapter in her life. Simmons’ decades of experience with wax and encaustic technique gave Frédérique a firm foundation upon which she started developing her own artistic search.

Contact Mobile:
Singapore   + 65  9235 8047
Hong Kong + 852 9681 7372

Contact E-Mail:
f.stref@yahoo.fr

Website:
www.frederiquestref.com

Interview with Frédérique from May 2019/Radio Singapore:
Here!