Art and Artists
Val Holland
Local Fountain in St. Paul de Vence.
Val Holland has been visiting the Côte d'Azur for the past ten years. Having spent more than half her life growing up in Sydney Australia close to the surf and sand, together with the family, Val moved across the world to Europe and settled in Jersey in the Channel Islands. It is not surprising that the beauty, colours and lights of St. Paul de Vence in France influenced her to take up residency last November for the winter.
The warm light days and south facing villa in which she stayed, gave Val the inspiration she needed to paint.
I asked Val how she started to paint. She told me her son, also an artist, encouraged her to go to classes. This was in Sydney about twelve years ago.
For three years she experimented with different medium and styles. "Colour and texture usually inspire me" she tells me. She prefers to use a pallet knife and thick oil on a large canvas and deliberately limiting the range of colours. One of her paintings was chosen for the prestigious Australian National Landscape Exhibition (The Wynn Prize) in Sydney at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in 2004 and the work was sold to a British collector visiting Australia.
Her work fluctuates between soft feminine subjects to strong large images of local recognisable objects. She enjoys painting colourful still life such as fruit and blossom and each piece is very unique. Her latest piece of the fountain (above) was naturally inspired by her stay in St. Paul.
Even though Val's paintings sell privately to collectors from the UK, USA, Australia and France, she is hoping to be able to exhibit in the future.
