Interview conducted by GEMS Team
Edited by Samantha Knight
Images Courtesy of  Jean-François Sauvé

Béatrice Côté : On Color & Memory

Beneath the surface of Béatrice Côté’s paintings lies a quiet emotional cartography. Within her nebulously dynamic dreamscapes, Côté builds an otherworldly visual experience where colour becomes sensation, memory dissolves into atmosphere, and nature transforms into an interior landscape. Her work does not seek to document a precise moment, but rather the emotional residue it leaves behind. Through blurred gestures, luminous palettes, and shifting compositions, Côté paints the fragile space between recollection and presence, where landscapes feel less observed than remembered.

 In this conversation with GEMS, Béatrice explores the emotional language of color, the poetry of imperfection, and the way painting can become both a refuge and a reconstruction of the self.

Q: Colour appears in your work almost as an emotional reaction rather than a descriptive tool. How do emotions guide your choice of palette while painting?

BC: I would situate my paintings between a physical and an emotional reaction. It’s a play of colour. Every painting session has a different equation: my energy level, present environment, and all the ideas going through my mind. Sensation, observations or a memory, the recipe is never the same. 

Q: Is colour, for you, a language capable of expressing things words cannot fully articulate?

BC: Colour is a beautiful language. Through time, I’ve developed my own rhythm to express my world of imagination through oil painting. I don’t know if it articulates more or less than spoken languages do, but it surely helps me express myself as an artist, nonetheless.

I remember looking at Joan Mitchell series La vie en Rose, and I was so impressed by her ability to transfer that emotional charge onto the canvas. Same for Helen Frankenthaler, with her long, diluted, colourful strokes creating a joyful dance. I want to embody the energy of these ladies who were not afraid to use colours in relation with their own emotions. For me, colour is a way to express, connect, and try to make life more beautiful.

Q: Some artists develop symbolic systems around colour. Is your relationship to colour intuitive, or have certain emotional associations become recurring constants in your practice?

BC: Sienna or Prussian Green have a specific place in my practice. I have a symbolic attachment to those colours. Terra Sienna, from when I did my residency in Rwanda. Prussian Green is my safety net and is attached to my first few years of practice. But most of the time, colours are an intuitive part of the cycle of discovery and experimentation, like the cycle of the seasons.

Q: Your paintings often feel suspended between memory and presence, almost like fragments of a dream. Are you trying to preserve fleeting moments before they disappear?

BC: It’s an amalgam of fleeting moments: the way light behaves in the studio, the colours available on my palettes, the images that jump out at me from my phone or that I’ve collected during my travels. That’s probably why the pieces draw you into navigating between the real world and fantasy, they bring together tangible and intangible elements.

Q: Do you consider painting to be a way of revisiting the past, or rather an emotional reconstruction of it?

BC: A painting begins at a particular moment in time. Sometimes months pass, and the stretcher is still in the studio, allowing for reworkings, accumulations and layers of ideas. The process can vary, but the work builds over time, so a single painting can hold the space between a blurry memory and a reaction to the present moment.

Q: There is a softness and blurriness in your gestures that feels deeply tied to memory. What attracts you to the imperfect or indistinct image?

BC: The softness and blurriness are tied to cognitive memory, but also to my muscle memory. What is appealing to me is the possibility to play with my fingers and arm gestures; The opportunity to deconstruct an image through movement and not follow specific rules or proportions.

It’s like a tennis player knowing how to relax their wrist and follow through on a stroke. The ball hits differently, and the body aligns in a way that supports the movement. A relaxed body is a loose body, allowing for an intuitive choreography of gestures. You become more attuned to the sensations and rhythm of creating. Through my practice, my muscle memory continues to develop, allowing me to relax and flow as I create.

Imperfection gives me freedom.

Q: Nature seems less like a subject in your work and more like an emotional environment. What has observing landscapes taught you about yourself over the years?

BC: The first thing that comes to mind is introspection, giving myself space to reflect on anything and everything. I feel really privileged to spend so much time observing nature and reflecting on images of it. So many people around me are caught up in the busyness of life and haven’t developed the ability to slow down and look. Some even actively resist it.

"The slowness of time refers to the perception, or the reality, that time
passes, or appears to pass, more slowly, whether due to a lifestyle choice, a
psychological state, or a physical phenomenon.

Society is allergic to slowness, allergic to returning to oneself. This is why slowness is a strength"

To me, nature is everything now. It’s the light spreading across the wall, the breeze running through my hair, the freaking humidity and heat making me sweaty and lazy. It’s all of that. Nature is so vast, bigger than we imagine, and it can truly guide us through life, sometimes in the least expected ways.

Q: Your work is often associated with Impressionism because of its atmosphere and gesture. Do you feel drawn toward a more abstract or conceptual language in the future?

BC: I feel it will depend on where I land next in the world. An environment has the power to change the way you think. I’m very sensitive to my surroundings, and the energy of wherever I find myself will definitely influence the way I paint.

Q: In an era saturated with sharp digital imagery and constant visual stimulation, your paintings invite slowness and contemplation. Do you see your work as a form of resistance to contemporary speed?

BC: Painting is inherently a slow medium. It’s a craft, a delicate way of working with materials. In a gallery or museum, it invites the viewer to slow their pace, move more gently and lean in carefully. It encourages examination and curiosity over efficiency and speed.

Q: When someone stands in front of one of your works, what emotional experience do you hope lingers with them afterward?

BC: To just feel good. 

Q: Final question, what are you currently searching for through painting today? Emotionally, visually, or spiritually, what are you inspired to project in your work?

BC: Emotionally, I’m searching for calm. Visually, I’m drawn to Nordic painters like Hilma af Klint and Iria Leino, whose rich colours and bold harmonies capture a spiritual essence that resonates with my own work. Ultimately, I’m looking for stability and a sense of grounding, then space to keep growing, blooming and flourishing.

Interview conducted by GEMS Team
Edited by Samantha Knight
Images Courtesy of Jean-François Sauvé