Caroline Dahyot, Villa Verveine

Ault is a small community of some 4000 inhabitants in Picardy, in France, located on a cliff facing the Channel. In this area, dominated by the Somme Bay, live and work several artists who depict the beauty of its nature. The art of the artist presented in this post, however, is about emotions we all may experience, both sad and happy ones.

Life and works

Caroline Dahyot (b. 1968), who got a rather religious education in an overprotected and austere setting, which increased her rejection of authority, in the late nineteen eighties was enrolled at the Ecole d'Arts Graphiques, where she just went her own way. At that time, in order to create a reassuring universe, she obsessively decorated the walls of her apartment with painted frescoes.

After Paris, she stayed for some time in Nice, making illustrations for magazines.

In 2001 she came to live in northern France, where she got a house on the rue Saint Valery in Ault. Following her deepest artistic motivations, Caroline made all kind of dolls and transformed the interior of the house by adding frescoes and mosaics to walls and ceilings.

Untill around 2006 she absolutely had no ambition to exhibit, but this changed, and in 2007 she had an exposition entitled Poupées d'amour (Love dolls) in Criel sur Mer, where she presented the puppets she had created.
It was an important happening, since here she met other artists with whom she felt akin, the world of art singulier (singular art), as outsider art is referred to in France.

Transforming the facade



Caroline decorated the facade in a more striking way, transforming the already present mosaics into frescoes depicting people and other representations.

However, when in the autumn of 2010 she added a more than lifesized representation of a young couple, Ault's mayor (probably taking into consideration complaints by inhabitants) was not amused and ordered the removal of the fresco's.