Lou Cocody-Valentino

Lou Cocody-Valentino is a multidisciplinary artist, who works mainly with screenprinting, painting, creating textile compositions and installations. She graduated in 2021 from a Printmaking Masters at La Cambre, Belgium. Her work is rooted in memories of her upbringing as an islander in Martinique, in the fragmentation of self she experiences as a multicultural being. Her creations stem from a process of reflection on color, composition, translucency. Having first studied classical printing techniques - focusing mostly on etching - Lou now experiments with recycled materials outside of the traditional realm ; working with melted plastics, printing shapes on fabrics, painting on wood panels, weaving upcycled yarns… A feeling of intimacy sets in between the artist and her materials, which all carry their own past, their particularities (their opacity, fluidity, softness…) and each tell a story. She aims to find an harmony between them, by using various techniques, such as natural dyeing, screenprinting, sewing, weaving. Her work aims to be a poetic archipelago, a porous place where each artwork responds to the next. All techniques, all assembled materials are used to question the idea of personal geography, more specifically the influence of territory and landscape on identity.