GJG is delighted to announce representation of painter and sculptor Colette LaVette. The artist recently presented her second solo exhibition at GJG, 'Jugular', which was met with resounding success. The show solidified her reputation for an evocative visual language that merges the organic energy of the natural world with a Rococo sensibility, creating works that are both refined and instinctual, ornate and raw.
To mark the beginning of LaVette's representation, the artist is releasing a limited series of seven original works on paper.
At the core of LaVette’s practice is a deep engagement with the paradox of human nature – strength and vulnerability, instinct and refinement – explored through a striking visual language that merges figurative painting, natural symbolism, and mythic resonance. Her recent series took the jugular as a site of focus, considering its historical and biological significance as both a point of fragility and of power.
Known for her commitment to sustainable practices, LaVette creates her own oil paints using natural mineral pigments such as ochre, lapis lazuli, and iron oxides, mixed with walnut and linseed oils. Organic colours that have surrounded humanity throughout evolution. These are applied to linen surfaces, reinforcing her belief that art should add to the earth rather than take from it.
Drawing on Primitivism not as aesthetic but as conceptual grounding, LaVette’s paintings position visceral, untamed figures within fluid, Rococo-inspired compositions. Her works hold a compelling duality, where grace and wildness coexist, particularly within expressions of femininity.
Natural elements – wind, fire, foliage, petals – course through her paintings, interwoven with fabric that floats like smoke or waves, forming a visual metaphor for the interplay between the wild and the man-made. This sense of movement and transformation is central to her work.
Influenced by Old Master techniques, LaVette pays close attention to light and rhythm, guiding the eye through intricate compositions of biomorphic forms and intuitive, expressive marks. Themes of rewilding, myth, and naturalism thread throughout her practice, shaped by time spent exploring remote landscapes and a deep interest in geological and biological history.
LaVette’s paintings sit between the ancient and the contemporary, the animalistic and the adorned, the instinctive and the composed – capturing a richly layered vision of the human condition in all its contradictions.
