The FEU invites you to discover or rediscover the work of seven artists in residence (professionals and amateurs) in our art gallery on Saturday 20 and Sunday 21 May from 14h to 16h : Erica Ashleson, amateur photographer, Fatima Cadet-Diaby, amateur painter, Laura Francese, illustrator, Alteronce Gumby, painter, Jabu d’Oliscat, amateur painter, Taylor Smith, painter, and Zoe Walsh, painter.
At the start of the exhibition, there will be guided tours of some artist studios on the 5th floor, each representing a very distinct artistic universe (15 people per visit – first come, first served):
Saturday at 2 pm and 3 pm Fatima Cadet-Diaby, amateur painter and Alteronce Gumby, painter
Sunday at 2:30 and at 3:30 Laura Francese, illustrator (2:30 only), Fatima Cadet-Diaby, amateur painter (3:30 only), Alteronce Gumby, painter
The Artists
Erica Ashleson is from Saint Paul, Minnesota. She graduated in International Relations in 2014 from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and studied in Aix-en-Provence during the academic year 2012-2013. It was in 2013, while volunteering in Marseille, that she became passionate about photography. She is currently in her second year of a Master’s degree in “Art Direction and Digital Design” at the Sup de Pub communication school in Paris.
Fatima Cadet-Diaby is from New York. She is a playwright, director and producer who recently graduated from Mount Holyoke College, where she studied theatre and specialized in musical theatre. During the summer, she interned with the Manhattan Theatre Club, Ars Nova Entertainment, The Musical Theatre Factory, Repertorio Español, and the New York Musical Theatre Festival. She is also passionate about painting.
Laura Francese was first trained in art history and archaeology at the École du Louvre. Today, she is a student at the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs, where she develops her research in visual arts and design. She has lived at the Fondation des Etats-Unis since September 2016. Laura Francese also has a particular writing practice since she is developing a dictionary of revisited and illustrated words, which she plans to publish. Her recent creations have a strong taste for narration, which is expressed as much in words as in images. She is interested in the representation of life in its simplest and most magical aspects: colour, light, nature, human relations, but also in its most complex and questioning aspects: the depth of supposedly simple facts, the hidden side of people and situations.
Alteronce Gumby is an artist from New York. He received his Master’s degree in Fine Arts (painting and printmaking) from Yale University (May 2016). Before coming to Paris, Alteronce Gumby benefited from international residencies in Scotland, at Dumfries House, Austria, at the Summer Academy in Salzburg, and participated in the London Summer Intensive program (London). Alteronce has exhibited in galleries in New York, London and Los Angeles (group exhibitions). Gumby’s work evolves mainly around the process of painting, but he also explores other forms of expression such as ceramics, poetry and performance. Gumby arrived in Paris just after the opening of his first solo show at 6 Base in the Bronx, New York, where he produced the second paper version of his work, One Way Ticket Across The Universe. During his stay in Paris at the Fondation des Etats-Unis, Alteronce Gumby hopes to engage in a metaphorical and conceptual conversation with Yves Klein, in connection with the arrival of African-Americans in Paris throughout the 20th century. Gumby is a Harriet Hale Woolley Fellow for this academic year 2016-17.
Jabu d’Oliscat grew up in New York. He is a playwright and essayist. He is a fervent reader of Agatha Christie and John le Carre who inspired him for his second detective novel entitled “Account for Me”. After his training at Frank Sinatra School of Arts, he was admitted to the City College of NYC where he graduated in Cultural Anthropology and Jewish Studies in 2012. A violin player, he then joined the symphony orchestra of the American University and at the same time completed an internship as a political analyst at the headquarters of the Peace Corps Volunteers in Washington D.C. This summer, he will obtain his masters in International Development at Sciences Po Paris. In addition to music, one of his greatest passions is painting.
Taylor Smith received two bachelor’s degrees in visual arts (painting) and art history at Boston University in the United States in 2015. She has had several exhibitions in the United States, France and Spain. This year she is finishing a master’s degree in cultural mediation at the École du Louvre. She works through several techniques: oil and acrylic painting, collage, printmaking, glass blowing and, since this summer, outdoor frescoes. In a creative approach that integrates human interaction and the natural environment as the main sources of inspiration, Taylor’s works present a crossing of organic and synthetic forms and materials. Through the medium of abstraction, she tries to reconcile the natural landscape and that of human creation. The physical result of this research is a series of representations of an imaginary world in which she seeks the ideal balance between the strength of man and that of nature.
Born in 1989, Zoe Walsh got an M.F.A. Painting/Evure from Yale University in 2016 and a B.A. History of Art and Visual Arts at Occidental College in 2011. At Yale, Zoe Walsh received an Al Held Fellowship at the American Academy in Rome in 2015. The following year, the artist received a Harriet Hale Woolley scholarship from the Fondation des Etats-Unis (2016-2017). Her work has been exhibited in venues such as the Abrons Art Center (New York), Yve YANG Gallery (Boston) and Performance Space Pieter (Los Angeles). In Paris, Zoe Walsh explores the intersections of the romantic movement in French painting and the interfaces between interior and exterior spaces in Le Corbusier’s architecture.