Les Amours Déchus (Discarded loves)

This is an oil painting on linen. I use mixtures of turpentine spirits, linseed oil and linseed stand oil. My paints are mostly Windsor&Newton and a couple of Holbein colours. I start my paintings with a grisaille. The composition was created from several of my photographs. I have included photos showing the evolution of the painting which was started in Paris in 2016 and finished in Drummondville in 2020. It has been signed and framed but I was still making corrections last week after it was hung.

Back in 2013-14, I was studying nude oil painting and drawing at the École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts de Paris with the artist Gilles Marrey. To get to the school I would cross the "Pont des Arts" whose guard rails were filled with locks hung by couples to show their commitment for their love. The locks were beautiful and I took several photographs. In June 2015, the city of Paris, because of the danger caused by their sheer weight, replaced the guard rails and discarded the locks. In 2016, I started this painting to represent the futility of trying to hold on to each other. My husband and I have been together for 50 years and it seems that for us too, in the end, our love will be discarded.