VISION

In my eyes, each individual component is singular, beautiful and unique, and could even stand on its own. 

Once orchestrated among many others, it becomes part of a much larger story, a story born from the harmony between the dominance of light over matter, negative spaces, and the sum of their actions… the shadows. 

When it comes to my work, I do not look to Nature for inspiration. But when I look at Nature, it is always through the eyes of Mankind’s odyssey with it’s trials and turbulations. 

From contemporary culture to existential notions, my work has grown to express abstract ideas that hold no physical existence or materiality. They are ideas that cannot be seen, touched nor heard and can only be emotionally felt… Ideas that exist only in our minds.

With each new project, rises a new challenge and a battle between the abstract idea and the inevitable gravity and essential hardness of matter. This tension has led me to search far and wide across versatile materials to find ways of defying and tame this essence to express my ideas. 

My exploration of matter has been ranging from glass, ceramic, marble but also 3D moving images to glow-in-the-dark materials, dichroic materials, holograms, gold and silver as well as clockwork and computer components, Perspex etc... the list is long!

Considering the process, I investigate the small and how it builds into a larger whole, putting elements together like a puzzle with the minutia of a clock maker. Like Penelope, I weave, unravel and weave again until peacefulness is reached, until my eyes stop blinking, until it is time to let go and dive into my next creation.

Like mandalas of light, the creations of this designer are multidimensional. Her futuristic universe, 100% exponential, plays on the plurality of materials and on a wide range of optical effects.

Moving from the infinitely small to the infinitely large and from the limited to the limitless is the main axiom of these incredible puzzles: super-sized mosaics that Nathalie Vin creates with the determination and audacity of the greatest explorers. Halfway between sculptures and conceptual installations, her projects often require several months of tenacious work and several weeks of preliminary research on the design.

Through many adventures, from Paris to London and now in Majorca, this self-taught artist developed a passion for the art of murals or more specifically, for the spectacular treatment of space.

However, this journey to the far reaches of pixelisation would not be what it is today had it not been for her innate sense of innovation.

"It all started in the UK in the 90’s where I created large scale glow-in-the-dark murals for nightclubs in London. For a long time, I worked in the dark and that familiarised me with other visual perceptions. I soon took an interest in odd materials which reappeared later in most of my mosaic work."

When it comes to mosaic art, everything is fragmented and therefore calculated, anticipated with the utmost precision”.

From a single tessera, thousands of others fall into place. Every time it's a huge challenge, an incessant battle between the abstract idea and the inevitable gravity of matter."

With the minutia of a clock maker, Nathalie Vin draws the path from individual to universal, through ever-expanding megalopolises, intra-urban mazes that revolutionise mosaic art with their kinetic approach. Multiplicity of expressions and diversity of materials are the goals of 'Multiverse' a cosmogonic piece where connection, in its literal sense, plays a leading role.

Back to monochrome in 'Wonder Where We Land', a checkerboard of cast shadows that suggests a bird's eye view of a city. With 'Free as The Air', the curved silhouette of a Koi fish inspired the artist to use hand cut circular tesserae to create a spectacular shimmering and hypnotising piece.

Finally, in 'Let There Be Light', a hyper sophisticated frame dialogues with the preciousness of black gold. In other works, such as 'Space Odyssey', the sparkle comes from glow-in-the-dark tesserae and a hologram acting as a third eye.

Each piece possesses its own main thread and prism of initiation. Nathalie Vin could very well be in her own way a time traveller. The galaxies she recreates before our very eyes never cease to question the worlds hidden inside of us.

Magazine Ateliers d’Art - Article by Valere-Marie Marchand

“In her mosaics Nathalie Vin, reveals a flare of sentimental beauty that gets thrown off-balance. The framework she creates in tandem with her magnificent mosaic, leaves sensationalism to her pieces.

Her signature style was born, something so appetizingly mesmerizing that you feel like you are embarked on a voyeuristic odyssey into Nathalie’s realms of holographic sci-fi poetry. Her vision is liberating, greatly exceeding her years and not unlike a kaleidoscope, Nathalie is “an observer of holographic form”. Her creation of otherworldly mosaics that blur the boundaries of art has brought me to my buffed and exfoliated knees. 

Through an extraordinary vision she isolates both the interior and exterior static beauty of an “objet d’art” and bring it to form in an exquisite framework”. 

Chantal Menhem, Art blogger.

“Come to think of it, this piece of yours, “Multiverse” might have co-inspired my book! 

I remember staring at it, being a bit of quantum universe fan, feeling the truth of it, and you being able to give it form like this made me feel…  it is possible to give it form in writing”. 

Gisella Gibbon, writer

To me, Nathalie's work means...

Being stopped in my tracks years ago by her piece ‘In Between The Lines' and not being able to stop myself thinking about it!

Standing transfixed in front of 'Free As The Air' - the first piece of hers I saw in person - wondering how the heck it was possible to cut such tiny, perfect and countless circles of glass and recreate the shimmer of fish scales so well!

Marvelling at the perfect chromatic explosion of 'Multiverse" - which by the way would look great on my wall!

Revelling in the beauty while not comprehending at all how her tesserae magically float in the genius sundial that is 'White Garden'!

Diving back into sci-fi worlds with 'Lost Cosmos' or 'Elsie's Blood On The Snow' where the cosmos and the infinitely small converge and converse.

Reflecting on the beautifully rendered yet terribly heart-breaking post-apocalyptic tale of 'Wonder Where We Land".

Gazing in wonder at an artist's world where holograms coexist with ancient materials... where gold flows in rivers... where mind and matter, Science and Art meet... where Huxley, Sagan, Blade Runner and Star Wars infuse a most ancient art form... where Mankind is often put in the hot seat... where obsessive precision and mind-boggling technique give birth to the silkiest and most (seemingly!) effortless of artistic flows... where the dance between Light and Dark is ever-present and where Nathalie's recurrent “ghost matter" reigns supreme.

Nathalie's art is as absolutely exquisite as it is profound, it leaves you starry-eyed, it inspires, opens new horizons, strikes conversations and above all, the most essential quality of Art to me: it speaks to the soul.

Gwendolyn Noble - visual artist