Artist Pau Lart paints freedom, order, color, and feminism
Pau Lart is a product designer, art director and painter from Barcelona, Spain. She is also the founder and curator of "Hello Artists" a platform she created to show her sensitivity and love of art. Lart studied interior design and art direction in Barcelona, but her interest in art was originally sparked at a young age by her grandparents who were also painters.
1. How would you describe your general aesthetic?
My aesthetics are a reflexion of myself, of Pau: freedom, order, colour, feminism, painting, art, passion... every piece of work is part of the same atmosphere in which I express who I am.
2. What has inspired you to make fruit, vegetables and flowers a dominant focus in your art?
Fruits and flowers have a strong connection with the aesthetics of women and I enjoy working with both. It is a combination that inspires me and in between which I feel happy and identified. It's curious how when I was a kid I used to paint mostly fruits and flowers… and here I am now!
3. why is white the base color of your work?
White and green are my favourite colours. White is a very generous colour to work with. It provides light, order and contrast with the represented element. But I am open to working with other colours too, they all inspire me and I embrace them all. The season and the time of the year is something that determines the colours that I choose, I can't help it, everything has to keep an aesthetic sense within its time frame.
4. For your photos including women we get the sense that a ritual or ceremony is occurring. Is that the intention? If so, what kind of ritual is happening?
It's not the intention. But probably without even realizing they are part of a ritual that I have been building up and that takes inspiration from my artistic memory. Now that I am thinking about it, I’m sure of it.
5. Do you have a favorite painting or a painting that you've made that is most important to you? Why?
All of my paintings mean something special to me, something that I want to express. I have always loved collecting recycled materials and painting them, so I decided to bring them into my paintings and create bodies and objects from them. However, if I had to choose one of them, it would probably be “The couple”, which might be the piece of work through which I can express in the best way the love for what I like the most, painting!
6. What is the purpose of ‘hello-artists’ for you. Simply an inspiration page? What is the direction?
“Hello Artists” was born to show a unique artistic aesthetic out of the work of many different people. They are all welcome, from painters, designers and sculptors, fashion, women taking selfies, people who post a flower in their Instagram accounts, to writers, dead artists, a bunch of fruits... This has given me so many good things, such as getting to know artists from all over the world and discussing artistic opinions, engaging with brands that I love or being able to share my personal work, which is now part of the “Hello” aesthetics that I truly love. I have so much fun with “Hello Artists”, and it is very gratifying to see that people enjoy it too. They write lovely things about my account and that makes me very happy
7. Why is it significant to draw/capture women form/bodies? Are you creating in order for women to more freely connect with their own form?
I have always been fascinated by artistic nude, especially since I discovered Matisse and Picasso years ago. From “Hello” I find interesting to compare how the different artists and photographers represent the woman in their own way. It is beautiful to see how despite being so different, they all have something in common that aesthetically connects them.
8. What emotions are you trying to evoke in your art? Do they correlate to how you are feeling personally when you are creating?
Absolutely. I believe my essence is fully captured in my work. My personality, my sensitivity, my passion and love for art… There is a quote I think a lot in and embrace from Frida Kahlo, my greatest inspiration, "I don’t deny my nature, I don’t deny my choices, either way I have been fortunate. Many times, it is in pain where one finds the deepest pleasures, the most complex truths, the most accurate happiness. Our time in this world is so absurd and fleeting that the only thing that reassures me is knowing that I have been authentic, that I have accomplished being the nearest thing to myself".
PHOTOS VIA PAU LART