Régine Devarrewaere

You describe your artistic approach as Empreintéisme. How and when did this concept first emerge in your practice?

Empreintéism emerged gradually, almost naturally, from my relationship with material, time, and memory. As a painter, I have worked extensively with textiles, felting, and soft sculpture. This slow, hands-on process has profoundly shaped my relationship to gesture.

Over time, I came to understand that what mattered to me was not representation, but the trace left behind: the trace of the gesture, the trace of time, the trace of memory. Collage and layering then imposed themselves as an obvious choice. I named this approach Empreintéism to express this desire to reveal what persists, what surfaces, what remains beyond the image.

Collage and layering play a central role in your work. What does the act of building an image through successive strata represent for you conceptually?

To construct a work through successive layers is to accept that nothing is ever completely erased. Each layer retains a memory, even when it is covered. This superimposition becomes a metaphor for time, for life, and for our own history.

Collage allows me to work with fragments, traces, and papers that already carry meaning. The work takes shape slowly, in a constant dialogue between what appears and what disappears. I am drawn to the idea that a painting can contain multiple temporalities within a single space.

Régine Devarrewaere | RêVerie | 2025

Memory and time are recurring themes in your paintings. How do personal memories influence the atmospheres you create on the canvas?

My painting is deeply nourished by intimate and familial memory. Poetry also holds an essential place in my universe. The presence of the poet Christian Tarroux by my side accompanies this journey. His way of inhabiting language resonates profoundly with my way of inhabiting matter. Our worlds engage in dialogue without ever merging, sharing a mutual respect for silence, rhythm, and long durations of time.

My work is also shaped by my name, Devarrewaere, of Flemish origin and connected to the work of color and textile, which strongly echoes my relationship with materiality. Without realizing it, my roots led me toward color, trace, and fabric. This is a memory that does not pass through words, nor even through narrated recollections. It is not a factual memory, but a sensitive one, permeating atmosphere, light, silences, and everyday objects. My works thus become open spaces, where each viewer can project their own memory and their own emotions.

Régine Devarrewaere | Vin De Paille | 2024

You work with hand-painted tissue paper, a fragile and ephemeral material. What attracts you to this medium, and how does fragility shape the final image?

Tissue paper draws me in through its extreme fragility, transparency, and its ability to retain the trace of a gesture. Hand-painted, crumpled, and layered, it preserves the memory of each stage. Its delicacy calls for slowness, attentiveness, and listening. This material makes it possible to express vulnerability, the passage of time, and ephemerality. It creates visual depth. Tissue paper is not merely a medium or a palette of colors; it becomes a sensitive skin, permeated by memory and emotion.

Light seems to circulate between layers in your works. How do you think about light as a structural or emotional element in your compositions?

For me, light is a fundamental element. It is never decorative. It moves through the layers, revealing hidden strata, like a luminous memory. It creates a sense of breathing, a space of silence.

Emotionally, light brings a form of calm and suspension. It allows the work to avoid becoming heavy, to remain open and permeable. It is what gives this feeling of calm and of time being suspended.

Régine Devarrewaere | DéBut De JournéE | 2025

You mention that Empreintéisme does not seek representation, but rather an imprint. What kind of experience do you hope the viewer will have when encountering your work?

I wish to offer an experience of slowness and presence. In a world dominated by the endless scrolling of images, I claim a long duration. “I do not scroll my painting.” I would like the gaze to pause, to feel the layers, the traces, the silences. For the work not to reveal itself immediately, but to be discovered gradually, like a memory one slowly comes to know.

Régine Devarrewaere | Habanita | 2025

Your works often feel suspended in time. Do you see painting as a way of slowing down the world, or preserving fleeting moments?

No doubt, both. Painting is for me a way to slow down the world, to step outside the state of constant urgency. It is also a way of preserving the ephemeral, of holding on to what disappears too quickly.

I also inscribe within it the imprint of the feminine: the hand of a mother, a sister, a companion, which, in the discretion of everyday life, offers simple gestures carrying care, tenderness, and presence. Gestures that are almost invisible, so natural do they seem, yet which form the silent fabric of ordinary happiness.

Painting thus becomes a space of gentle resistance, a place where time regains its natural rhythm, where these essential gestures can finally be seen, acknowledged, and preserved.