Nathalie De Zan is a French multimedia artist born in 1985 in Toulouse, France. She has a twin sister with whom she has a very strong bond and tells about their relationship in some of her artwork. She developed early on a taste for art by her grandmother who pushed for her to be sent to a children’s art school. Fascinated by art, color, and poetry, she decided to go this path. In 2010 she graduated with a Master of Fine Art from the Jaurès University of Toulouse. During the first years at university, she started to become fascinated by the French and German tales. She did an internship at the Collège de France in Paris with Patrick Imbert who taught her the photographic studio techniques. She did her first exhibition in 2009 after that she started to show her works in various places around France. After this period she really started to develop her own creative process using influences from her dreams. Her works remain autobiographical and show some attributes of feminism, pop art, and erotica. Absurd, surreal, and sometimes naive, her artwork has become more and more full of colors. In 2016 she traveled to Japan which sparked her imagination and gave her the desire to play with perspective and sharp shapes. She moved in 2017 to the United States where she currently works and lives. Since then, she has shown her works in France, Italy, and the United States. Her last shows were at Novado Gallery, Barsky Gallery, and Prime Gallery in the United States.
Statement:
There is a sort of absurdity in the world we are living in. And for me, this absurdity creates a sort of poetry that naturally makes up everyday life. In my images there are no answers, no resolutions but simple tales.
Most of these tales are extracted from my dreams. It is a direct door into my mind. It is as naive as the wavy veins under the skin that I create in my works and as intense as the colors I use. I spew out incongruous mythology that belongs to me but also kind of resonates in each of us. In other words, I am convinced that my work is the result of my history, the way I experience life but it is not unique.
Tales come from symbols and symbols are universal. Even if they can be slightly different according to the culture. They create a dialogue in each of us. The perfect example is Little Red Riding Hood. This is a tale I particularly like and that I chose as a subject for my Masters degree. There are a multitude of versions of this tale around the world but the symbols are so powerful that they exist in all the versions.