Colette Bitker

The other day I learned about an artist I hadn't encountered before, Colette Bitker, who was born in Paris in 1929 and lives in Belgium. The people and objects in her paintings are drenched with luminous colour, layers of intimacy, symbolic domesticity.

Quotes from the article that drew me to the artist as she articulates how her work springs from her inner world.

'"I  am made of many emotions tied up to the past, with nostalgia for a more human world"'

'They may be common domestic objects, but to Colette “they hide, symbolize, insist.” For she does not paint still lifes, she says, but the interior of lives.'

'"I have a little notebook with me all the time. When I travel, when I read or hear music, when I am happy or sad, I draw and I write my thoughts."

'Entry: "Warmth of the room, of the bed, of the light, of love; life sorrows.
Entry: "The bed is landscape, ocean, it is infinite — earth, sky."'

'a word-loving painter'

'Colette often chooses a single theme such as her "Interiors" because it gives her a chance to explore different emotional and compositional facets of a single mystery. She is painfully aware of the current dangers in the world, and against them, she proffers her images of "calm, protection, peace"'.

Victoria Magazine

I went searching online and found Colette Bitker's web site, a short interview on YouTube, this delightful video, and these words,

'"Pour moi écrire et peindre c'est vivre et lutter chaque jour contre la mort... Mais c'est aussi rêver."'

prestaplume.fr

The article, which I learned about from Lesley Austin at Wisteria & Sunshine (where she celebrates 'wild simplicity, deep domesticity'), was a cutting from Victoria Magazine, no date available.