Helene Michel-Donadieu

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Hélène Michel-Donadieu, Collage artist, painter with scissors.       
 

« Khartégraphie, khartégraphie » ? what does it mean ? You will not find this word in the dictionnary since I created it from the ancient greek «  khârtés », meaning sheets of paper and « graphein » that we do not translate any more. 

My way to wink at those people who do not take you seriously when you say you create with magazine clippings, a pair of scissors and glue !
Certainly a way to keep smiling and give a noble pedigree to the art of Collage …

Painting with a pair of scissors, drawing or writing with paper, or to be more precise – with pieces of paper cut out from magazines has become my favourite expression for the past ten years. I preferably care for cutting shapes and colours and arrange them to create visual illusions  or give another meaning to the images… Images can speak in may different ways … you just have to find them or build your own story !
 
My « visual games » would like to drive you in a wonderland where objects are cut, changed and re-assembled to give birth to an artwork , sometimes allegoric, most of the time simply funny or unexpected. In any case, each of my « khartégraphies » are designed to invite you to share worlds that I wanted to build with light, colours and harmony."

Born in 1959 in France, Hélène spent her childhood and adolescence in "La Réunion" (Indian Ocean Island) and went back in the south of France, in Saint Paul de Vence, before studying letters and languages in Paris. Initially, she was a technical translator specialised in aeronautics in Paris, she left again France in 1986 to live in French Guiana (South America) where she was responsible of the  public relations and communication department at the French Guiana Space Center, the europe’s  spaceport, and took part in more than 140 Ariane rocket launches.
 
In 1994, during her first holidays at  her parents,  she literally fell in love with the little paradise of Saint Barth. In 1996, again on holidays in Saint Barth, she started her creation work. Magazines, scissors and tubes of glue were her only tools to start her art. Resident in Saint-Barth since the end of August 2004, in June 2005, she opened the Central bARTh GALLERY, her art studio and gallery at La Pointe, Gustavia. Today, Hélène shares her artist life between the Central bARTh GALLERY, at Petite Saline, Saint-Barthélemy, and her heART STUDIO in Guadeloupe where she moved by mid-2006.