The Silent Depths and Melancholic Beauty in Françoise de Felice’s Art

Transmission 112: Interview with Françoise de Felice

Françoise de Felice is a prolific painter who creates portraits of women infused with the mysteries of European Baroque art. She experiments with textures and produces liquid hues with a distinct sharpness. Born in Paris, she is of Italian descent on her father’s side and French on her mother’s. Françoise’s initial artistic approach was rooted in Impressionism, which she explored in all its forms until 1982. She then relocated to Sicily, where the French Impressionist style no longer satisfied her. She ventured off the conventional path, developing her own unique and distinctive traits, ultimately creating her signature style. She began to capture the light of the island and the magnificence of Sicilian Baroque through delicate yet precise lines and flowing curves. She adapted her work into an intriguing, exploratory narrative as a form of self-evaluation. Her style evolved from a desire and need to convey uncertainty and complicity.

Françoise’s art conveys a gentle, melancholic message about femininity. Viewers begin to uncover personal echoes of the subconscious, starting with subjects that are unmistakably feminine. The women she paints seem to emerge from another time, transporting viewers through history. Her art forges connections with diverse cultures. Beauty nourishes her universe, not only through elegance and appearance but also by exploring the soul’s inner beauty. She offers viewers a singular refuge. Like a dream, viewers become lost in a maze of poetry and subliminal messages. Françoise’s inner struggles are revealed as battles in a complex world seeking an ideal, tranquil balance. Colorful streaks and drips suggest a rupture in the fabric of imagination or an abandoned narrative. Her colors are ethereal, transporting the audience to a world balanced on the border between dream and wakefulness, where lucid dreams vividly interpret what the mind and eyes perceive while blurring certain details. Her brushwork is dynamic, precise, and fluid, creating a watery sensation. It is surprising to discover that it is all done in oil paint. She has coordinated numerous international exhibitions in Geneva, London, Paris, Caracas, Padua, Rome, and other cities worldwide.

Interview with Françoise de Felice in French
Featured image: Offrande © Francoise de Felice
Françoise de Felice’s official site, Galerie Calderone, Facebook, and Instagram

Can you tell us how you got interested in art and why you chose painting? It has been a clear path since your childhood? What were the best memories and satisfactions from the beginning?  What were the biggest challenges?

My interest in painting came naturally at the age of 4, every Thursday at my grandmother’s house. I would spend my time with a pencil in hand until it became my profession. I realized it was my path when I saw that my paintings were successful from my first exhibition in 1976 in the Canary Islands. I love challenges, and I often have to produce a significant number of paintings for my exhibitions. I started by reproducing landscapes like the Impressionists, and then, by finding my own style, I was able to paint my thoughts and engage in introspective work

Her grandmother, who had attended an advertising workshop during the era of Fernand Léger and the Chat Noir cabaret, introduced her to graphic art when she was a small child. She attended the Beaux-Arts school and studied at the Sorbonne simultaneously.

One of the strongest aspects of your artwork is the idea of inventing your own mythology. Which narratives or themes do you frequently return to in your artwork, and how have they changed over time? 

I reinterpreted mythology in my own way and invented my own symbols. In fact, art is about telling the story of human relationships—love, indifference, domination, struggles for power, crimes, or madness. The story of humanity. Nature, animals, and we are one whole. There is no hierarchy when it comes to beauty; it has no gender. Perfection is genderless. It is true that I mainly paint young women in static poses, in obvious silences. There is something indefinable happening that creates varied atmospheres. The gazes that reveal a person’s emotional depth fascinate me. My women reflect my entire emotional universe. They can express waiting, incommunicability, love, melancholy… The beauty of a soul lies in its propensity to give warmth and empathy. It can help achieve peace and lead toward happiness.

The style of Françoise de Felice was born from a combination of chance and desire. Her artworks deliberately capture the splendour of the sumptuous, the dark, the opulent, and the superficial.

You incorporate symbols of nature, such birds and creatures that are genderless, as well as the collective unconscious. What role do these components play, and what led you to the decision to remove gender distinctions from your symbolic creatures?

In my approach, whether conscious or unconscious, I strive to capture, through a gaze, the position of a body, or simply through color, a sensation that comes from afar, that transcends time and touches the viewer. Melancholy is the driving force of creation. It opens up a whole field of thoughts that resides within each of us.

Françoise de Felice developed her own artistic identity by straying from conventional paths and creating her signature style. Inspired by the splendour of Sicilian Baroque and the island’s light, she experimented with liquid blends and delicate yet precise lines.

How do you create a balance while using watercolour in your artwork? What drew you to this method? What feature of these materials, from texture, colour, and symbolism allows you to express your personal vision in your paintings and how do these enhance the emotional depth of your paintings ? 

I don’t use watercolor. My oil painting is indeed very fluid, and I work with transparencies, but the watercolor technique is exactly the opposite of oil, both in the preparation of the colors and in the drying time. Texture is an important component of a pictorial work. It is essential to have a personal texture. One day, a long time ago, a filmmaker told me: ‘In each of your works, there is a crime.’ It could be the death of adolescence. The conflicts that sometimes arise go back to childhood and intensify during adolescence, as is the case with many writers or artists who lacked love. And then, a love story at 20 definitively disappointed me. All this past created an emotional void impossible to fill.

Her style, rooted in both skill and persistence, is profound. Her artworks reflect a contemplative process that ventures into self-analysis.

Your pieces mentioned a complex world where the artist fights demons. Could you describe the nature of these internal conflicts and how they are reflected in your paintings? How do you use ambiguity to create a sense of depth and intrigue?

I don’t want to fall into miserabilism, because I paint with pleasure. Ambiguity is fascinating; it exists in each of us and disturbs our perception of the world. Yet, one must find a path through this labyrinth. A writer or painter is like a sponge; I am deeply influenced by the masterpieces of the past. They resonate within me, and the viewers feel it too. Everyone finds themselves in it.

Her works possess mythological undertones, and her artistic expression is inherently instinctive. Her characters, with their pale and intriguing appearances, gaze at nothing and everything. Their gaze drifts, seeking to transcend the ordinary.

In what ways do you envision your future research on femininity and the subconscious evolving? Are there any fresh symbols or topics you can’t wait to investigate in your artworks? What do you believe is the role of the artist in society, and how do you hope your work will impact viewers?

I will continue to create my own mythology. I am also seeking to paint a perfect face, a face of porcelain or ebony that represents the perfection of a soul. An artist has no social class; they are everywhere. I hope my work will continue to captivate my admirers and inspire a desire to live, as some collectors have told me.

Photos and images courtesy of Francoise de Felice

Dominique Musorrafiti

Ciao! My name is Dominique. I’m Italian and I’m proud to be a mix. My father was an Italian chemical engineer and high school teacher, with Greek and Polish heritage. My mother is Haitian, she was high school language teacher, with Dominican, Spanish, French, Portuguese, African and Native American heritage. Being a mix makes me appreciate to want to understand different cultures and lifestyles. I grew up in Italy, lived few years in Haiti, travel around main European capitals, lived many years in China, in Spain and UK. Traveling makes me feel that we can learn something from every situation in every part of the world.