Bio

Born April 11, 1963 in Côte D’Ivoire

Self-taught artist

Artistic and technical influences used

Eugenie Bitty’s work is first described by plastic artist Michel Braun as an apparition imbued with radicalism, poetry and humor. The artist shares her dreams through her painting: a new world, unusual and familiar, secular and sacred, where her African origin emerges. Humans and hu-paws (animals) or furies, original, surprising and generous, animate Eugénie Bitty's story with great tenderness.

First arrived in France at the age of 18, Eugénie Bitty's artistic references go above all through traditional African art which nourished her throughout her childhood and continue to endure in her life through her art and African handicrafts business in Paris.

During her first exhibition, Eugénie Bitty's paintings are compared with the art of Niki de Saint Phalle to which we could distinguish several points in common. The artist then decides to visit the Saint Phalle exhibition at the Grand Palais in 2014. This exhibition marks Eugenie, who recognises herself in the work of Saint Phalle but above all in her discourse as a woman both artist and housewife; the sculptures of headless women in particular touch her all the more because she herself has already created a series of paintings on the same theme in the past.

Other artistic references and influences emerge throughout her exhibitions as visitors share their perspectives with Eugenie Bitty.

Like the Little Thumb, Eugenie acquired over the course of her exhibitions, little seeds or references allowing her to see more clearly her condition as an artist as well as the legitimacy to explore her own identity.

At the start of her exploration of pictorial art, Eugenie Bitty first turned to acrylic as well as so-called traditional media: such as canvas or paper.

Her style becomes clearer one day in the countryside, with the godmother of her youngest daughter, Sophie. As she crossed the garden, the artist felt a form of appetite, like the urge to eat an apple, her being called upon her to create something. Dressed all in white like a wedding day, she grabs a board worn by the flames of an ancient bonfire, grab a lump of coal from the debris and start drawing. From this day on, raw materials such as wood and recycled materials as well as dry pigments such as pastels and charcoal have become her preferred materials. The wood allows her to give colour, texture and contrast to his characters of dark dyed colours and dry pigments: greater freedom in her expression.

‘“When I was little, there were no painters in my village. When we wanted to draw or represent things, we did it on the floor with a brush, a simple stick. I think I like dry pigments because they remind me of the dirt and dust of my childhood. '' Eugenie Bitty

The Great moments of the artist

The organisation of Eugenie's first exhibition at the Théâtre de La Tempête in 2009 was accompanied by the decision to then travel to India. The warm welcome received by her work allowed her to realise this dream and also trigger a series of important events and meetings.

Through Hindu art, Eugenie recognised, with strong emotion, the animals and chimeras of her own paintings, as in the "Humans et Hu’pattes" series or the "Janus" series. While in India, Spiritual Master Sathya Sai Baba organised an event there bringing together communities from all continents: a choir from Nigeria, for example, represented Africa. In her room, in the ashram where she was staying with other women, Eugenie drew an elephant calf, not understanding what prompted her to do it. She then went out, sat down at a crossroads, and Sathya Sai Baba's baby elephant passed in front of her. She went to touch him, letting this amazing experience mark her deeply, like other highlights of this intense journey. Since her return, Eugenie Bitty has never stopped planning a new trip to India.

Philosophy of life

I remember when I was very little when I went to my father's fields and saw large trees cut down by a tornado, I said to myself: instead of them falling and rotting, if I could turn them into something beautiful, if I had that power… Everything that gets lost touches me. Whether you are a man or a woman, tree, animal or insect, it is the same body ... I tell about human life, everything that lives and dies to be born again ... I tell about life that has no end … '' Eugenie Bitty

Eugenie Bitty is very sensitive to the idea that things can get lost and not be renewed or transformed. Hence her pleasure in working on salvaged media, as if to give new life, a destination to materials already worn out by time. She perceives the world, humans, flora and fauna as one and the same body, a whole, an entity in continual rebirth. Her creative work participates in this great cycle of life.