ATM Gallery is pleased to present A Winter Fairytale, a solo exhibition of paintings by Annabel Faustin, on view from December 10, 2022 – January 8, 2023.

For Annabel Faustin, painting is a way to revere the natural world, a means of silencing the unyielding grind of modern life. Working figuratively, she finds a visual language of gentleness, through vivid colorfields, depicting a paradigm where humans live in harmony with their surroundings. Faustin’s world, unlike our own, is brimming with silence and compassion. Drawing influence from the Fauvists, who found boundless inspiration in the French riviera, Faustin creates her one visual language, where womanhood is central, and oversized figures recline underneath the blanket of the earth.

The modern world is not forgotten—Faustin playfully converts the commanding glow of smartphone screens into placid waters. In another painting, a figure observes the world with their face just above the water. A sheep, its wool rendered in deep blue, is embraced by another painting; women gather around the radiant new growth of a seedling; a mountain becomes anthropomorphized, delicately holding a yellow moon.

Faustin holds a mirror to our existence by presenting us with inverted order in which warmth and care are boundless. Quickly, it is our daily life which begins to feel strange, and her mythic visions which carry the weight of truth. 

Annabel Faustin (b. Toulon, France, 1989) is a Paris-based painter. Her work has been recently featured in a solo exhibition at Galerie Zberro in France and in several publications, including Widewalls and Harper’s Bazaar.