Valerie Rey
Paris, France, *1965
Valerie Rey was born in Paris. She has been trained in Fine Arts and developed her first years of work in her homeland in the field of graphic design, textile, decoration and architecture.
In 1999 she decided to migrate to Costa Rica, a land with which she emotionally connects feeling part of an overwhelming nature due to its magnitude and beauty, making it the essence of her artistic inspiration.
From the Parisian urbanity to the Central American jungle, from French to Spanish, Valerie Rey chose to live, produce and reflect in an environment related to her search, staying close to the primary source that motivates her creative impulse and from there transmitting, putting in her work, her ideas and concerns.
From the moment that life reveals its true face there is no beginning, no end, only an ebb and flow of continuity… an eternal breath!
Valerie Rey works through intuition, there she comes into contact with herself. She collect fallen trees, dead branches, fungi, roots, driftwood, empty walnut shells and seed pods. They are considered “dead Nature” forgotten by all because they are without value to most people. She collects them jealously as for her, they tell the story of our land, our heritage, a part of ourselves.
She sublimates her wood treasures by covering them with gold. It is a sensual act to apply a gold leaf. The gesture must be calm and precise, she asks to hold her breath at the moment of the pose, a parenthesis in the tumult, like an act at once religious and voluptuous.
Every day in her studio, Valerie Rey found, forms and shapes glass beads like tiny beings, similar but in reality, all different and once assembled, form a colony, a people. To repeat these gestures again and again is a therapeutic mediation for her.
Then comes the assemblage… gold forever symbolizing power and eternity, glass a token of purity and clarity.
At the moment they unite, the metamorphosis takes place and the resurrection takes shape, the vibrant creation of a new organic material comes to life, highlighting the value of mere life itself. It is necessary for the whole process to take its time as it is a Re-birth. There lies all the meaning of Valerie Rey´s work.
We fully realize ourselves when we are aware that our time is limited, which gives more value to life and allows us to appreciate the beauty of what surrounds us, every minute, every second that we are given.
