Fressinier

`Art is something you cultivate, it is alive! My joy of painting is to listen to the piece and to have a discussion with it. Each one has its own personality.` Born in France, the artist Fressinier was raised in an atmosphere of creativity. Both of his parents were portrait photographers and his father, also a landscape painter, was responsible for much of his early formal training in basic drawing technique. Since his student days at the Brassard school in Tours, France, Fressinier has developed a fondness for what he calls the `great sensitivity` of the portraits of master painter Anthony van Dyke and admires the brilliance of Leonardo da Vinci, who changed the course of art with a smoky technique known as `sfumato.` Fressinier explains that he is often inspired by other artists, and finds that going to galleries, museums and art libraries fires his imagination and expands his creative process. `Working with artist John Douglas in his studio really opened my eyes and mind to all of the possibilities around me,` he explains. `I am inspired by his mastery of color and the constant flow of ideas.` Fressinier began studying the old masters' technique, which led him to be more at ease with the figure. Fressinier enjoys the joie de vivre of the Renaissance painters and describes the vibrant color palettes and voluminous figures as both glorious and classical in nature. He also admires the work of Sergio LePore, who, in Fressinier's words, `allows his paintings to be vessels of his dreams.` When asked what process he might follow in choosing a subject and composing a new work of art, Fressinier does not hesitate to reply: `I go through what most painters can identify with, which is to be alone in the studio relying on myself for the success of each painting. I do a little sketching, but not so much that the whole painting is revealed at the first stage. The joy is to see it appear progressively. Each day I try to let it talk to me and not to force anything.` When Fressinier is not in his studio making art, he enjoys gardening, reading and playing guitar, but takes special pleasure in playing with his kids. He appreciates his wife, Colette, for being his Muse and the greatest admirer of his work, and puts his religious beliefs and faith at the center of his personal philosophy.