Artiste peintre pastelliste professionnelle depuis 2003, elle a pratiqué le pastel au quotidien pendant 15 ans, réalisé et vendu plus de 6000 portraits sur commande, un métier très strict qui offre peu de place à la fantaisie, il faut que «ça ressemble», le tracé doit être précis, millimétré. Avec les années, en parallèle de son activité stricte de portraitiste elle a eu envie d’aborder l’outil pastel d’une manière différente en n’utilisant plus que la tranche de celui-ci et en abordant ses portraits directement dans la masse, c’était le début de sa série «Portrait expérimental». Plus de trait de construction, plus de limite, la matière brut du pastel ainsi posée et non lissée plait énormément, il y a dans cette méthode un côté primitif, un retour à l’essentiel. Avec le temps ce goût pour la matière brut l’a mené à la peinture à l’huile au couteau et au pinceau large, elle a découvert le plaisir de peindre et de sculpter la matière pour faire en sorte que la couleur, peu à peu, crée un tableau qui avant n’existe pas encore par le croquis, le plaisir de voir émerger peu à peu d’une toile, un paysage, une nature morte, un portrait. Ses oeuvres sont uniques et originales, elles cassent les codes de l'art pictural traditionnel. Sa techniques Millefiori, ses portraits expérimentaux ainsi que ses peintures à l'huile sans croquis, font aujourd'hui d'elle une artiste reconnue par des collectionneurs d'art dans le monde entier.
An accomplished painter and pastellist, Nathalie Jaguin has been working as a full-time professional artist since 2003.
For a decade and a half, she specialized in portraiture with a view to faithfully depicting the sitter : an exacting technique which she perfectly mastered. She undertook 6000 figure portait commissions in the course of those 15 years. A very strict discipline, portrait-painting mainly implies the accurate reproduction of the sitter’s features. The technical rigors and precision required to render a realistic image, demand an absolute command of the art of drawing, leaving very little room for the artist’s fantasy. This was what she missed most. While still applying her skills to portrait painting, Nathalie therefore decided to explore other avenues, consequently offering an exciting new leeway to her bubbling imagination. In the « Experimental Portraits » series, she deliberately adopted a different approach, handling her pastel in an alternative fashion by using it lengthwise. This technique gives a satisfying « carved-from-the-block » feel to the painting, in which texture becomes foremost. The subject appears to be chiseled out of the matter itself, a bit similar to modelling clay. Additionally Nathalie ventured away from the usual technique which consisted in initially drawing and sketching before applying colours. She subsequently discovered new unchartered territories devoid of any limits, where raw pastel became a predominant feature. Choosing to leave the pastels unblended, she achieves this visually rich variety of colours by using a layering technique. This much favoured endeavour met with widespread enthusiasm on the part of the general public. The artistic method heralded a new approach based on a bold, primitive « back-to-basics » attempt. In due course her love for raw material led Nathalie to start painting oils on canvass, using a palette knife. She consequently explored a new range of subjects and discovered with unmingled pleasure the art of painting in a sculptor’s way, unbrindled by contraints.
In doing so, she happily allows the colours to enlighten her, pervading the canvas, stroke after stroke, fuelling a new creative spirit.
Her breathtaking landscapes, her amazing still lives and portraits stand out for their unique and original quality, breaking away from what is usually acknowledged as traditional painting. Today it is therefore no wonder that her stunning« Millefiori » painting technique, her Experimental Portraits and her enthralling oil paintings -made with no preliminary sketch or drawing- should earn her worldwide acclaim.