Marine Joatton is an artist who lives and works in Paris, France. Oil pastel blurs with paint and winds throughout Joatton’s untitled compositions, leaving subject matter suspended between figuration and un-modeled form. Through this fusion, the artist flattens pictorial space and replaces visual illusion with a myriad of contrasts that render the substance of visual dialogues.

One painting from 2014 bears high texture and marks in yellow, white, green, purple and brown while not fully covering the canvas. Joatton’s paintings are thus momentary traces. This surfaces again in another untitled painting that shows predominantly red hues. Colorful lines intersect, drip and smear through serendipity. Both of these pieces measure about 15” x 18” and 19” x 25” and appear as sketches of a larger idea.

Joatton saturates the canvas with color in a painting from 2013 that lightly suggests the idea of a blonde painter. Shades of red, pink, and purple compress together and efface the subject. Another piece from the same year appears similarly and stands next to the viewer at 5-feet in height while the color drowns out most of what one sees of a figurative form, leaving one with traces of a faint wave and smile that quickly disappear into the dark, heady atmosphere. These paintings were made while the artist was on residency in 2012 and 2013 in Pusan, Korea where she completed about 50 compositions.

Marine Joatton graduate from the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris in 2001. Since then her work has exhibited frequently throughout Paris. Since its start in 2006, Joatton has participated in the Salon de dessin that is now held each year in the Carrousel de Louvre. Galerie Eric Dupont hosted a solo show of her work first in 2007 and then in 2009 titled La contemplation de la flaque. In 2011 she received two solo exhibitions, Faire ventre de tout that took place at the Espace d’art contemporain Camille Lambert in Juvisy-sur-Orge and Début de l’élevage des ficelles at the Galerie Réjane Louin in Locquirec, France.

Atelier Blanc hosted Joatton in a solo show of new work druing 2012 titled Je me lève avant les fleurs. The artist’s most recent one-person exhibition Spontaneous Generation took place in 2013 at Gallery 604 in Pusan, Korea. In 2014 she participated in Almanach – Cabinet de dessin that took place at Galleria Alessandro Bagnai in Florence, Italy as well as Qui, que, quoi, donc, où at Galerie Brun Leglise in Paris. Paintings and drawings by Marine Joatton are featured in the Fondation pour l’art contemporain Claudine et Jean-Marc Salomon, FRAC Picardie, Fondation Colas, Fond National d’Art Contemporain (FNAC) Paris, and Maison de l’Art Vivant, la Giffardière, 61120 Fresnay-le-Samson. Joatton is currently preparing for a solo exhibition in Seoul, Korea.