In conversation with Isabel Heal and Victoire Paillard
Hosted by Holly Barton and Penelope Gordon at Beer Rebellion for Deer in Traffic
16th of March 2025
What defines your practice/ what is it about?
So, at the core of my practice it's about the body, physical touch, removing things such as brushes and painting directly onto the canvas with my hands or my body. I take more of a performance-based approach. Yeah, that’s really fun.
What influences your work?
Again, performance based artists like Janine Antony, performance such as ‘Love and Care’ where she paints with her hair. And she's done ones where she paints with her eyelashes. So, I was really inspired by that and trying to think of how I can use my body to paint with, to take away the barrier of using a tool. Yeah, and show my presence as an artist.
That’s really interesting actually. I didn't know that you used it, that's so cool.
This way of painting came from my dissertation, I was really inspired and it just made sense and clicked for me.
What is your creative process from concept to completion?
It’s quite intuitive, so I'll think about channelling emotions I’ve felt at the time of creating a painting or maybe I'll take a bit of time to reflect on an event, how that made me feel and use my hands and kind of let it all out. Then step away and think about it. I'm trying to slow down the process but at this point it's very intuitive and of the moment of its creation. I'll erase things or cover them up based on the emotion I feel but you’ll always see a bit of the underpainting as well.
So do you ever take one, take a few days away and then when you come
back to it with a different emotion?
Absolutely, yes. Sometimes I'll paint something with an intense emotion and then after a certain amount of time I'll come back and think well that's not really how I feel anymore.
What is your next project/ what are you working on?
So the next project is the degree show. I've recently got a big, tall canvas, and I'm going to use it to map out my movements as a whole – like how far i can reach up. Again, because its so intuitive how i do things i can't really say how its going to turn out but I'm looking at just creating more and more things and taking forward what I've learned in the last couple of months.
Could you talk more about, I don't know, what does it, touch physically in the canvas, what does that, how does that help you with your message or what is the message that you're trying to covey?
I feel like touching the canvas directly really helps me to channel these emotions into something visual. I think using a paintbrush can kind of stagnate those emotions. Yeah, it can really help me to express myself.
As more of an abstract painter, how do you approach the abstraction over images?
It's very in my head, the very emotion translated into movement and action. I think I do subconsciously compose it in a certain way too, but it's very difficult to describe because it's so in the moment. I’m now starting to with my work recently, maybe thinking about how images do appear out of the abstraction and kind of carve them out but that's in its experimentation stages.
Is there any specific piece that comes to mind when I say describe that emotional, describe that process, and you think of one that you're most proud of, or the journey was the most effective?
I think some of my bigger ones, it was a bit of a turning point. I didn't love it, and then when I saw it in the gallery and how people responded to it, it seemed really successful, people understood what I was trying to put forward, so I felt really good about that I managed to show people how I was feeling. I find it hard to do that in words, so it's nice to do it in visual images. And one that I'll be putting in here, it's really small, using my fingerprints. I'm very proud of that because it was quite tender and thoughtful.
Tell us about your next project, do you have any plans for the degree show?
Yeah! I mean I'm going to do a huge painting with inks as i feel they work. It's going to be really cool. I think that will be more challenging with the size as it’s a lot more to control.
Content- wise, what would you say you find yourself going back to a lot within your work?
Myself. My life. Moments of my life that i find myself doing over and over, that are not secrets, but because I do them when I'm alone. It’s me watching myself, they’re kind of personal and I go back to those moments a lot, so it's quite introspective. Kind of watching myself and the things I do, how much they tell about who I am and how people could perceive them instead of how I see them. Theres so many things I do I don't notice, or people point it out, then I notice and I see myself doing it. E.g. I see a few photos where I'm rubbing my ear and then I'll paint a close up.
Do you do the close-up bit of the paintings as a way to really focus in on it, or is it just because it's part of what you want to do?
I think it's to focus on that thing, and also because I'm interested in the places that will have a more interesting visible contrast, I guess. So there are a lot of faces, because I don't know, I don't particularly love my face, but I love to draw my face, because I think it has some interesting shapes.
Do you think then you see yourself as a bit of a character?
Not really, in my paintings, yes, in those inks. I feel like I look different in most of them, some of the moments as well, they definitely capture just very much an intimacy. It feels really vulnerable when I was looking at it, in a really, really good way, where I felt very connected to it, in a way, I just felt very drawn to looking at the detail and what the emotions were coming off of it. Yeah, I can't do them at school, I need to do them when I'm alone, or even if my roommate is watching, when I'm doing the inks, I don't mind showing them after, but when I'm doing them, I have to be alone. I guess it's quite a private thing.
When you say you notice yourself doing tics, what is it about that that interests you?
What it could mean to people when they see me,
in that voyeuristic way,
yeah and what I think it means about myself, and how much of the self is constructed by what we think of ourselves, if that makes sense? It's like inner perception, and then how you're actually being perceived by others. And I guess you feel you get closer to that through painting.
What drew you to ink specifically as like as a medium?
I felt really uninspired, like very, very uninspired. I haven't been painting all year, like every painting I've tried was like, for me, a massive fail. Sorry. And inks, I don't know, it's like I didn't really have to, it's so sad, but I didn't feel like I needed to use any creativity. But then they like, while I was doing them, of course, like I saw like with the water, the ink moves and that's interesting and that always creates something new.
Specifically, could you tell me some things that were behind, you know, the ink ones on canvas? Because those were so raw. It was absolutely unbelievable. Like the one with like the boob leaking?
A lot of those inks are either from like photos that I found on my phone that I like, specific moment that I've like cropped and reimagined. Like the one of the boob leaking is like a photo of me sleeping and I've opened the eye and put out the boob - I wasn't naked. Or I've like shot them myself for like a specific angle I was looking for. But I've always, I always like zoom in very much on like that specific place. I feel as well having like a boob in there is like, it brings that sort of like, like rawness into it.
I think also like being one of the big boobs, it’s that thing - t's like, okay, I actually didn't ask for this. I'm being sexualized probably before I'm ready for it. Everyone loves them but you, you know? And it's like, they're your fucking boobs.
Yeah exactly.
Isabel Heal and Victoire Paillard's show will be on display at Beer Rebellion from the 18th of March to the 20th of April 2026.
Private view at 7pm 18.03.2026
Beer Rebellion, 129 Queens Rd, London, SE15 2ND
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