Painting exhibition – Christelle Decker

From 16 to 30 April, some fifteen paintings by Christelle Decker will be exhibited in the Tourist Office. It will be possible to come and see them every day from 8.30am to 12pm and from 1pm to 5pm. Admission is free.

Autobiography of Christelle Decker

I was born in Luxembourg on 13 October 1963. Originally from Athus (Belgium), I grew up in this prosperous region before the decline of the steel industry.

At the age of 18, I moved to Brussels where I studied French-English and Spanish translation and obtained a degree in economics. There I lived my life as a woman, mother and professional.

Artistic creation entered my life relatively late. I started drawing at the Academy of Drawing in Saint-Gilles (Brussels) from moving models. Two years later, I switched to painting. I had a very nice space to work in at the Molenbeek Academy.

I did a lot of training courses to familiarise myself with different artistic practices: bronze, glass, porcelain.

After relatively short stays at the Academy (two years drawing, two years painting), I moved away from any form of academism to follow my personal path and rented a studio.

I did not exhibit much during these periods. I certainly participated in a few exhibitions but without actively seeking to show my work. For me, the essential was achieved because thanks to painting and drawing, I had finally found what made sense to me.

I like a physical, gestural painting, being one with the canvas. I like the language of colour. I like to translate the unspeakable into coloured gestures. The smell of linseed oil permeates the studio; music is often the starting point for my compositions. Expressing what has not been deeply experienced only allows a representation, an image. For me, painting is anything but an image. It is a fleeting spark of life, captured by the magic of the brush.

Painting breaks the time line. One is not bound, as in a verbal syntax, to align words, to form ideas in sequences.