Bio

Anne-Sophie Adelys has received a formal and classical arts education at the French art school: Les Beaux-Arts and graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1994. As a painter she has exhibited in France and New Zealand.

She relocated to New Zealand in 2001.

Anne-Sophie initially worked in the advertising industry in France for six years. While her art practice was her main interest, she always worked to support herself, as a graphic designer, curator and as an art tutor. Her first teaching experience was a baptism by fire when she worked with convicts while a student at Art School. She loved it and never stopped teaching. In recent years, Anne-Sophie has expended her tutoring experience by offering artist mentoring and has found it to be valuable in helping artists to expand their artistic vision. She has realised that it is an important part of an artist’s development to have the opportunity to discuss their personal art practice with other professional artists.

The main subject in her art practice is the presence of absence in terms of memory, including the capturing of moments and people that are often forgotten. The methodology she has adopted for her practice-based research starts with photos (found, vintage) where people are usually posing. She then deconstructs the image, creating a contrast between unrefined drawing lines and exaggerated realism elements and then removes the person itself of the painting. Although the painting is about the people or the person, she never paints it. This approach enables the conceptualization of complex relationships between visibility and invisibility as well as recognition and  interpretation. Anne-Sophie’s paintings tell a story in the absence of narrative clues, and draw upon familiar personal history to navigate the viewer through the compositional space. The interchangeability of recognition and seeing - not as representation, but manufacturing a primary experience out of the past - is a central issue in her work.

Contact: art[at]adelys.co.nz