About the Artist

Christine Connelly is a figurative artist. Raised in a large Irish family with eleven siblings meant there were always plenty of people to draw.

After training as an art teacher at Leicester University, UK, she taught in England and then in Madrid, all the while drawing and painting, mostly portrait commissions.

Alongside a career in PR in Johannesburg and London, she continued to develop her drawing and painting techniques and to experiment with different media: oil, ink, acrylic, pastel and water colour.

Then came the move to Paris where she still lives and works. In 2001 Connelly decided to concentrate solely on her art. She studied figurative painting in the Ateliers of the City of Paris for many years under the guidance of Antoine Petel and Gonzalo Belmonte.

Connelly takes a break from her studio to attend life drawing sessions at the Grande Chaumière in Montparnasse. She is a firm believer that drawing is the basis of all figurative art.

Exhibitions include solo and group shows in Paris, London and Barcelona. She has participated in Art Fairs in Paris notably Le Salon d’Automne Centenary, and at the Carrousel du Louvre.

She won the gold medal for her painting ”Prose” at the Salon des Artistes du 15ème arrondissement, Paris in 2002 and the Jury’s Special Award five years later. Connelly is represented at Saatchiart and was selected for their 2014 special collection featuring artists in France. In 2018 she won the Montmartre Drawing Marathon.

Her work is included in private art collections in Europe, US and Australia.

Artist statement

As a figurative painter, the human form takes centre stage in my work. For me the act of painting is intuitive. It is, as Francis Bacon said « the nervous system projected onto the canvas ». In my case, this nervosity is expressed through the energetic interplay of line and blocks of colour.

A painting starts with my instinctive response to a single image or a number of totally unrelated images which beckon and draw me in. The image can be taken from life, a photo or a film-still: the more blurred or out-of-focus the better.

Then the fun starts…..

I begin to orchestrate scenes on canvas, fusing parts of the chosen images together to create mini-dramas. A dialogue is established between me and the subject using the language of paint: oil and/or acrylic. The paint is loosely applied, often with a rag or palette knife and thickeners to achieve the free, expressive result I want. I use the drawn line to punctuate and maintain the momentum of the action. This tussle creates a tension which I find exhilarating. Often I introduce geometrical shapes as a counterpoint to the freer action.

Once I’ve taken the dialogue with the subject as far as I want, the conversation is rounded off by the viewer who brings their response : emotional, intuitive, intellectual.

My goal is to create interesting pictorial scenarios for the viewer to get involved with.