Hilarie Couture
BoldBrush Recommends: Hilarie Couture
Biography
Hilarie Couture started to draw at age two, using a purple crayon to dress the women in her dad's Playboy magazines. Living in an abusive home, she would retreat into her closet and draw faces that resembled Margaret Keanes' sad eye kids from the sixties, ballet dancers and horses. Her love of art continued through high school, earning a scholarship, to attend Washington University in St. Louis, in fashion design and medical illustration. She quit discouraged with only pre-med classes and no art, and hitchhiked to San Francisco to draw portraits on the streets. One day she traded a portrait for a haircut and was convinced to become a hair designer, a "real" job, abandoning her drawing skills for over thirty -five years.
Later she became an auctioneer, appraiser, and realtor, owning a combination salon auction gallery/ antique mall. These careers provided a creative outlet and income but at age 55 she enrolled and earned a degree in historic building preservation. One class required her to paint a mural that won an award. Her instructor said she missed her calling and should have been doing art all along. That was the catalyst that brought Hilarie back to fine art.
"The history of my life informs what I do, every trial and triumph translate to the canvas… I believe painting portraits and figures give me what I have always strived for, a connection with people, to feel loved and validated. Choosing to paint people also because facial recognition is the first form of communication and somehow it might subconsciously resolve the difficult relationship I had with my mother. The intimacy that becomes through sitter to artist to viewer is a very personal bond. I think my paintings tell THEIR stories and MINE through the faces. "
"I know God gave me this natural gift ,but the more I have grown to understand art, the harder painting has become. Naively, at first...I remember not really thinking, just enjoying the process of painting ,but now that I know things, it is hard. I still enjoy the process maybe even more now , but I am constantly asking myself. what is the color, temp, value what is the direction of the light… are my brushstrokes expressive enough, etc... It is a journey.
I am primarily a direct painter, prefer life but also work from photos. I prefer oil for its various qualities thick too thin. I love pastel, oil pastel colored pencil ,charcoal, and experimenting with mixed media and water media. My journey has taken me from photorealism to romantic impressionism to more contemporary abstracted reality. Which brings me to the thought .. is there really anything new in art? Someone else has already probably already done it.
Having Russian heritage, I jest that I am secretly channeling Fechin as he died in 1955 ,the year I was born so I could carry his legacy. I feel that my work has energy like that of the Russian impressionists and I strive to execute color and light effects with paint. I love so many masters... past and present. Bongart, Mancini, Sorrolla, Sargent, Zorn, Waterhouse, Mucha, Klimt, etc. Richard Schmid and on and on so many contemporaries...I discover new artists daily, ...
My work, like painting itself, is about contrasts. It is an attempt at balancing the chaos and order, just like my life...experimenting by painting over earlier canvases leaving some of the image exposed. I do love working with mixed media and strive to be less literal overall letting the viewer fill in the details...finding their own story in it. Then in contrast, I will check myself by working in a hyperrealistic way once in awhile."
Hilarie Coutures' art is gaining interest with new collectors all over the country. She also recently had a six page article published with Pratique des Arts Issue #53 , a prestigious French magazine devoted to the art of pastel. She is represented by Attic Gallery in Camas, Washington, Gallery K , and a feature at Ruth Koomler Gallery in Fort Wayne, Indiana . She is a sought after workshop instructor and accepts commissions in her studio/gallery in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
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This painting is the most delightful portrait I've seen in a very long time!