Ysabel Le May
I paint what many of us have experienced: The ecstatic release that comes from a walk on the edge of the ocean.
      I've spent the last thirty years of my life travelling all around the world visiting some of the greatest cities known to man and yet I find myself filled with great inspiration when I come face to face with the vastness of the ocean. It is that quiet analytical and introspective moment shared with this space, where I get a sense of urgency to paint. It has become my personal challenge to convey this sensation of evasion, tranquility and introspection that surges within mankind when meeting face to face with the sea. I love to imagine that someone living four hundred years ago was taking a walk along the same ocean, looking at the same sky and getting lost in its shapes and colours and continual movement just as I do today. I find my seascapes to be documentaries of a space that really doesn't have a point of reference within time. They can be termed as documentaries depicting anywhere.
     Being poised before an ocean is a sensation too complex to be put into words. This emotion that is timeless and universal, is a language that is defined by ephemeral symbols of nature such as wind, color, cloud formation, ripples of water that are as fleeting as our breath passing through our heart. Why the sky, the ocean? Its the continual dance and rhythmic movement that captures us and asks us to look beyond our physical and personal concrete structures and connect with a sublime feeling of evasion from these. I lose myself within the perpetual changing colours, and forms of the sky. It can be calm and bright or brooding and tempestuous. I love the interpretation that each moment offers.
      My paintings allow you to travel far and deep within the canvas. Often the seascapes I depict leave the viewer with a sense of wonder. They wonder about the technique. The complexity of the glazing and the subtlety and richness of the colors. There is a depth to my work that is brought about by the stroke of the artist's hand, and an understanding of the alchemy of materials. My work is created using oils paints and alkyds, finished with glazes and multiple layers of colored varnish using pure pigment powder.
      I usually see people pointing to a particular spot within my paintings, and talking about the playfulness and feelings of abandon that it evokes within them. I love to offer that to people. To see them allowing themselves the time to be playful and reminiscent.
      I find my seascapes to be documentaries of a space that really doesn't have a point of reference within time. They can be termed as documentaries depicting anywhere. Not necessarily alien or intelligible. Instead we find ourselves floating around somewhere within the vastness of an ocean or sky. Never really quite sure where they meet.
      My paintings allow you to travel far and deep within the canvas. Often the seascapes I depict leave the viewer with a sense of wonder. They wonder about the technique. The complexity of the glazing and the subtlety and richness of the colors. There is a depth to my work that is brought about by the stroke of the artist's hand, and an understanding of the alchemy of materials.
      My work is created using oils paints and encaustic medium, finished with glazes and layers and layers of colored varnish using pure pigment powder derived from the earths of Italy, England and Germany which gives it depth and luminescence.
      I love painting. I really do.
      Ysabel Le May was born in Québec City in 1966. After obtaining a diploma in graphic design and communications she moved to Vancouver, where, between 1986 to 2002 she worked for several prominent advertising agencies. She eventually owned a successful agency for nine years and studied as an independent student in the art and painting program at Emily Carr.
      Upon her return to Montréal, Le May reoriented her career toward her first passion: painting.
      She began studying painting under the tutelage of international artist painter Carmelo Blandino with whom she was able to learn and work as his studio assistant. Le May began selling her art immediately to various private and corporate clients in Canada, which helped her attain notoriety as a young and dynamic artist. In the summer of 2004 she produced her first solo exhibition at the Galerie Espace in Montréal. Since then she has participated in several group shows in Canada and the United States. She recently was recruited by Camandona art Gallery in Alba, Italy. Her work can be currently seen at the Montréal Museum of Fine Art Gallery where she has been represented for the last three years. She is also the recipient of the prestigious artist’s grant from Le Conseil des Arts et des Lettres of Québec in 2006. Le May also exhibited in a group show, for the third year in a row at Trudy Labell Fine Art in Naples Florida.
      Ysabel Le May is an artist who possesses the ability to evoke beauty through the art she creates. In paintings she chooses to work with oil and recycled steel as a medium. In a contemporary style, Le May’s work offers an expressive and contemplative approach which leaves the viewer room for interpretation...
      Ysabel Le May now resides in Naples Florida where she works full time as a painter.

Education
2002-2004   Carmelo Blandino painter / assistant    
1998-2000   Emily Carr / art and painting program    
1983-1987   Collage Sainte-Foy / graphic design and communications

Experiences
2004-2007    Artist painter/ Canada, USA, Italy   
2003-2004    Designer / Studio 100 dessins   
2002-2004    Painter and assistant for Carmelo Blandino /Montréal  
2000-2002    Designer for studio Coquine / Vancouver, Montréal   
1990-2002    President, art director / Le May studio / Vancouver   
1986-1990    Graphic designer / Québec, Montréal, Vancouver

Shows
2008     Tour show, Friends of Art, Naples Museum of Fine Arts
2008     Group show, Judith Liegeois Designd, Naples , Florida
2007     Group show, Camandona Art Gallery, Alba, Italy
2007     Group show, Land, sand & Time, Trudy Labell, Naples, FL
2007     Solo show, Trudy Labell Fine Art Naples, Florida
2006     Galerie du Musée des Beaux-Arts de Montral
2006     Solo show, Trudy Labell Fine Art,Naples, Florida
2006     Group show, Less, Trudy Labell Fine Art, Naples, FL
2005     Group show, Land, sand & Time, Trudy Labell, Naples, FL
2005     Galerie du Musée des Beaux-Arts de Montral
2004     Group show- small work / Galerie Majellart
2004     Galerie du Musée des Beaux-arts de Montral
2004     Solo exhibition / Galerie Espace / Montral
2004     Group show, Galerie Madelaine C / Montral