Museum Musings #3 After Frida

'Museum Musings #3 After Frida,' by Josette Simon-Gestin, Acrylic on Canvas Painting, 2022

In this 19.625" x 19.75" acrylic on canvas painting by Josette Simon-Gestin, 'Museum Musings #3 After Frida,' features two young women playfully engaged in a museum room with a large portrait of Frida Kahlo. The girl in the foreground has her back to the viewer but reaches for a red ball that has moved out of grasp. The girl in the mid-ground faces the viewer as she happily walks demurely through the space looking at flowers and her friend. The two are seemingly unaware of the all-knowing gaze and approval of Frida who overshadows the room. The palette is colorful with blues, greens, gold tones punctuated with red.

"For many years I have been painting, drawing, etching, making collage or ceramics. If my work includes a lot of series, I can say that I love to paint women and children in a world of fantasy made of strange animals in baroque situations. I wish to express the complexity, the beauty, the ambiguity of the world as I feel it. In all these women, there is something of me but the sum of all these women does not equal me or I would have nothing more to say. I paint and draw and create a word of fantasy with colors to illuminate the world with Chagall and Picasso not far away. Numerous series have accompanied me during my itinerances.

I grew up in Brittany, France where I studied art at the Beaux-arts in Rennes. I moved to Oklahoma City in 1987 and started to print at the Paseo Intaglio Printers and to show my art in group and individual shows. My art work was shown in Florida, Missouri, California, Illinois, Minnesota, Indiana and in Japan. I later moved to Philadelphia where I was involved with the Women’s Caucus for Art and Art at the Armory. After three years, my family and I returned to Europe.

In Italy, Austria, and France, my work was exhibited in several galleries. In Brittany for four years, I reconnected with my roots and was invited to show in the Euroceltic Festival in Lorient. During this stay in Europe, my work was still shown in the United States and was acquired by private and public collections. I am currently represented in Oklahoma by Objets Trouvés. In Rockville MD, I was part of a residency program to work on the link between creativity, childhood and art. I have shown my work in Copenhagen at the French Cultural institute, at Global Art Gallery and Gallerie Lorien with the Artival festival, among other places. My work has also been displayed at the UMK, the Danish minister of foreign affairs.

Back in Brittany since 2017, I have shown my work at hôpital Bretagne sud and Saint-Grégoire institut supérieur des Experts-Comptables, at Improbable Jardin gallery and at the Ploemeur médiathèque.
I am part of the 101 Kunstnere book, 101 artists in Denmark for 2018-2019 and the Dots on the wall catalog, exhibit at the Lorien Gallerie at Copenhagen."-- Josette Simon-Gestin