Bailly, Carol
Règle pour le chanteur parfait
Carol Bailly, "Règle pour le chanteur parfait", 1987, India ink, coloured pencil, gouache, 24 x 32 cm, Photo : Giuseppe Pocetti, Atelier de numérisation ¬- Ville de Lausanne Collection de l’Art Brut, Lausanne
Author
Bailly, Carol,
(1955), Switzerland
Biography
Born in Brockton, near Boston, in the United States, Carol Bailly (1955) moved to Switzerland with her family when she was fifteen. Living on the shore of Lake Bienne, she worked in Lausanne as a doctor's assistant, then as a telex operator, before moving to Fribourg.
In 1980 she was making collages which she then reproduced as silkscreens. Two years after her marriage in 1983 she was hospitalised for depression and began to draw untaught: narrative and sometimes autobiographical images of everyday life and interaction, portrayed with humour and irony. Women are the focal point of her creative universe, with the male figures always small and relegated to the background. Audrey Hepburn, Grace Kelly, Madonna and especially Frida Kahlo make frequent appearances as the embodiment, for Carol Bailly, of the Muses and archetypal women artists. The heads and lips of her characters are systematically huge and out of proportion. Other recurring motifs are pianos, plants and rows of houses.
Bailly punctuates her artwork with written passages that follow the outline of the figures and sometimes develop into real texts in speech bubbles. Reminiscent of the layout of comics, these segments are an integral part of her creations, giving them the look of playlets. Working with gouache and pencils, she produces dense, vividly coloured works on supports totally saturated with detail.