“I would also be very happy if you wrote an article about me and my work. But I don’t want to give you any information; I’d like you to do it purely based on your own impression of me as I appear.” I got up in the middle of the night to read her email, which arrived at 11:28 p.m. yesterday, and here I am already at work. For Maÿlis de Bascher’s wishes are commands, and I am only too happy to oblige… Yann Boutouiller
Biography
Maÿlis de Bascher is a passionate artist and a visual storyteller renowned for her dreamlike and flamboyant works. From her early childhood spent in Africa, she retains a taste for large-format canvases and bold color combinations that have become her signature. Introduced to the visual arts by her mother Béatrice, herself a painter, Maÿlis spent part of her adolescence in Bologna, Italy, where she created her first canvases under the watchful eye of master Francesco Giuliari. He recognized in her both a great talent and a remarkable ability to structure her work. She inherited from him the habit of concealing small details with hidden stories in each painting. During her higher education, Maÿlis returned to Italy and settled in Rome, where she wrote a thesis on the role of women in Federico Fellini’s cinema. Her work was praised in the press by director and screenwriter Gianfranco Angelucci. In 2004, Maÿlis opened an art gallery in Barcelona. She returned to Paris in 2008 and has since devoted more time to her painting, studying the movements and styles with which she most resonates. Gradually, her work reflects echoes of the Russian avant-garde of the 1920s, Cubism, Pointillism, and Impressionism, blending classical and contemporary techniques and tools—including those borrowed from street art. From New York to Tokyo, via Frankfurt and Rome—not to mention Paris—her paintings consistently bring forth a cardinal light, that of the South. As an international artist, her work was the subject of an exclusive exhibition organized by Christie’s in 2023, marking the first time the auction house presented and sponsored a living painter. Alongside her artistic practice, Maÿlis—who holds a CAPES in visual arts—teaches at the Notre Dame de l’Assomption Lübeck school in Paris, where she shares her passion and artistic culture with younger generations. Deeply attached to the 6th arrondissement where she lives, Maÿlis has presented several exhibitions there in recent years, the latest being Décalage Horaire at the town hall in January and February. This exhibition of around fifty works aimed to offer visitors and fellow citizens a moment of blooming spring, colorful joy, and light at the heart of the Parisian winter.