"I discovered engraving and pastel washes thanks to Frédéric Dambreville. I was immediately drawn to the difficult choice of subject: that of brambles in nature. In addition to the motif, which gradually tends towards the abstract, it is also the poetry of the subject and the artist's beautiful writing that seduced me."
 Stephanie Peyrissac
 Series: The Art of the Bramble, excerpt
 "It wasn't towards the city that I turned when I came to Brussels, but towards the woods. First in search of the birch trees of the Tervuren forest, I then became interested in the groves and shrubs covering the embankments flanking the paths. Then in the undergrowth of the high forests or hedges, dark vegetation of wasteland or "rubble" that is usually left aside.
 For almost twenty years, my work has revolved around trees and nature. From a figurative approach similar to landscapes, it has gradually evolved towards a refined research, focused on detail. Today, brambles serve as my "model." They have emerged thanks to the snowy winters that left only this so-called "creeping" and parasitic vegetation floating in the forest, but a source of food or shelter for all kinds of species. With their vine-like and floating structure, made of repeated arches or cascades of compound, bluish leaves, they constitute an inexhaustible source of motifs for me. More fluid, more supple, profuse, less monolithic than the tree which, in my previous paintings, was still of the order of the character, they also leave more room for gesture, rhythm, and improvisation. Such a jumble of shadows and lights, of planes and backgrounds, of veins and leaflets punctuated by stems bristling with prickles that one cannot follow its infinite complexity, aesthetics or movement taking precedence over any naturalistic inclination.
 Moving away from the narrative as I got closer to the subject, the abstract emerged in the repetition and selection of motifs, these taking on more and more breadth and space in the painting, where the line almost becomes a subject in itself. Working with pastel, watercolor, acrylic or drypoint, techniques that exclude repentance, I use the forms for themselves, by what they dictate or inspire me, by what they express. At the origin, there is the attraction, the emotion in front of such a form, such an atmosphere, such a color or such a harmony of colors, such a plant, such a landscape or fragment of landscape - a sense inspired by a quest or an intense observation. It is this "desire for nature", deep, instinctive, liberating, which finds its derived appeasement in painting. A "sense of the forest" or perhaps only a look at nature, art.
 Frédéric Dambreville
 Born in France in 1953, Frédéric Dambreville pursued artistic work through various techniques: pastel, acrylic, watercolor, engraving. After beginnings marked by abstract painting, he explored, during the 80s and 90s, the figurative in its various forms (portrait, landscape) and exhibited regularly in Paris and the provinces. His stylistic research then led him to take an interest in printmaking. He developed a very personal approach to engraving, and participated, within the Brussels academies, in various projects and solo or collective exhibitions. He published texts and illustrated various magazines on art and literature.