Sixtine Aymen de Lageard

I have been drawing animals as far back as I remember. For instance, coming back from a trip to the zoo at the age of 5 meant hours and hours of carefully drawing all of the most amazing animals I saw during my visit. When I was seven years old, my mother gave me a box of watercolour paint, enabling me to graduate from coloured markers to brushes and paint. From that point onwards, I used it to represent animals, and later landscapes and people, especially when I traveled. 

Years later, I no longer exclusively draw and paint cheetahs and elephants in watercolour, and I have worked on a variety of types of paintings, both figurative and abstract. My greatest artistic influences and mentors have been Sofia Lucas and Carolina Piteira, as well as my own mother, Séverine de La Chapelle. I grew up surrounded by her artworks; she brought me to art galleries and museums from a young age everywhere we went, particularly in Paris, and in Singapore, where we moved when I was 8 years old. 

I have developed an insatiable curiosity for people, cultures, and the natural world, which explains why I am inspired by a variety of themes. In all of my paintings, I try to communicate joy and amazement through colour and texture. Be it from the majesty of an elephant or the inquisitive gaze of a child, I find endless amounts of beauty in the eyes of certain subjects. When I paint, it is usually a subject I believe we must protect, respect, admire. I work with acrylics, and a variety of other mediums such as gold leaf, ink and pastels to bring texture and expression to my works.