Valérie JAYAT French, b. 1962
"Valérie Jayat's paintings are poetic and imaginative, bringing together human figures, whimsical creatures, and dreamlike scenes. Through soft colors, textured surfaces, and expressive lines, her work invites viewers into a world of emotion, memory, and playful reflection."
Born in France in 1972, Valérie Jayat paints scenes in which you think you recognise something without ever quite grasping it. A bandoneon player, a harvester, a puppeteer, a rain dance: her characters have a trade, a gesture, an intention, and it is up to the viewer to imagine the rest.
She works in mixed media — oil, acrylic, inks, pastel — on wood, canvas or paper, layering materials and flat areas of colour until she reaches the depth that has become her signature.
Self-taught, she learned by drawing, long before devoting herself fully to painting.
Valérie Jayat has drawn since childhood. She taught herself, refining her line and her sense of colour over the years while pursuing a professional life outside the art world. That distance gave her the time to build a world that resembles no other.
Based in Brittany, she starts from what she observes around her and recomposes, in her studio, imaginary landscapes and atmospheres. The bond between people and nature runs through all her work: things are planted, harvested, repopulated, resisted. Her titles say it in her own way, with humour and gravity at once: "Plantons !", "Repeuplement", "Résister", "Elle jette tout".
Her technique is built in layers. Inks, oil, acrylic and pastel answer one another, flat areas of colour overlap, and the drawing remains visible throughout, precise and controlled. It is this meeting of a disciplined line and a free handling of material that gives her paintings their density.
Her work has been recognised with several awards, including the City of Châteaubriant Prize in 2016 and the Jury Prize at the Saint-Aignan-de-Grand-Lieu salon in 2012. Her paintings are held in the collections of the town of Carquefou and of the Association Centre de l'Arche in Saint-Saturnin.
Art Thema has presented Valérie Jayat since 2025, introducing her to its collectors at the Fine Art Fair in Leuven, the Fine Art Fair in Wavre and S'MART in Aix-en-Provence. She is now one of the gallery's leading painters, at a price that remains accessible given the quality of her work.
Would you like to discover her paintings? We will show them to you by appointment, in Belgium, in the South of France, or in your own home.
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Bandonéoniste -
Danse de la Pluie
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Danse nuptiale
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Décorné
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Elle jette tout
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Marionnettiste
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Moissonneuse Lettreuse
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Plantons !
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Repeuplement
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Résister
