My painted collages are an echo of the places and experiences that have shaped my life. I am influenced by my studies in art history, archeology and classical languages like Latin and Ancient Greek, as well as ancient writings including hieroglyphics. I trained at the Galerie de L’Olympe, an academy of oil painting, under the mentorship of French painter Pierre-Jean Chaffrey in Lyon, France, and at the Ateliers de la Rue Raisin in Saint-Étienne, France. I also studied decorative painting with Pierre Finkelstein in Los Angeles, California. 

I am a storyteller and use the art of collage and painting to create a visual story. Though my painting contains imagery, I consider my work to be abstract. Its content is open to everyone’s interpretation. Texture and color are equally important in my creative process. I start by combining three dimensional elements and textural materials to create an embossed surface. When I bury these objects in a collage I give them a new context and I create new relationships between them, with their surroundings and with me and the viewer. They become pictorial elements, ideograms and symbols to form a new writing. Then, my painted vision follows its path among those raised patterns, discovering and recovering what is salient to my story. 

This two-fold process creates layers of narratives and lets emerge new pasts and new memories that preserve our cultural identities and humanity. The things that we touch, own, use, see, interact with, then disregard or forget, hold memories of their time with us. 

For all inquiries, please email

sophie.a.gauthier@gmail.com.