Bayle, Nicole
untitled
Nicole Bayle, untitled, 2010, paint and ballpoint pen on paper, 16,1 x 22,9 cm, Collection de l’Art Brut, Lausanne
Author
Bayle, Nicole,
(1948), France
Audio biography
Biography
Nicole Bayle (1948) was born in the 18th arrondissement of Paris, France. She began studying art without completing her high school education, graduating in 1968 with a diploma in applied arts. She began giving drawing lessons at various schools, while continuing her training at evening classes in various institutions in Paris and Dijon. At the age of thirty, she was appointed to a teaching post in a small town near Dieppe, in Normandy, where she moved the same year and has lived, with her sister, ever since.
Apart from going to Paris on weekends and during school holidays, Bayle never leaves Dieppe; she has never travelled abroad or taken a plane. She has no use for credit cards, cell phones, the internet, or any modern technology. Television and her art correspondence are virtually her only links with the outside world now. She paints, decorates, and makes collages for her letters – several a week – sometimes using salvaged material, such as photographs and illustrations from newspapers. She paints all sorts of faces on the lids of tin cans, which she adds to her letters. Today, Bayle continues to be creative and to take an interest in many other artistic activities: knitting, painting, drawing, creating collages, and carving driftwood or bone.