Exploring Identity, Empowerment, and Resilience: An Interview with Sophie-Yen Bretez
Sophie-Yen Bretez (Vietnam b. 1994) is a French self-taught artist currently living in Paris. Originally from Vietnam, Bretez moved to France when she was 4 years old, providing her with a rich fusion of cultural heritage. After completing a master’s degree at Neoma Business School in Rouen, France, in 2018, Bretez held multiple management positions in the creative industries throughout Paris. In 2021, Bretez decided to pursue her passion for art and began creating full-time.
Rooting her artistic practice in self-awareness, Bretez is inspired by the freedom found in observing her own experiences. The interplay of warm and cool tones, the harmonious contradictions in color and composition coexist with the aesthetic beauty of form. While beneath the beauty and harmony, Bretez unveils that the essence is also one of pain, darkness, and sorrow.
Bretez confronts themes of the human condition and the complexity of emotions while exploring the rich plurality of her identity as an adopted French-Asian woman. Building upon her signature style of dream-like surrealist figuration, Bretez’s works dive deep into issues such as trauma, resilience, identity, intimacy, and empowerment. Focusing on discovering ways in which to mirror the human condition in a state of recovery, Bretez often includes an illuminated horizon line, stating, “I paint horizons for those who have suffered. They symbolize the Possible and the Elsewhere.”
Bretez utilizes reverse voyeurism to challenge our societal relationship with the naked female body and create distance between her characters and the viewer. Unfaltering and strong, the women in Bretez’s paintings look directly out at the spectator, serving to prove they are not at the viewer's disposal; rather, they assert control of their own bodies.
A natural storyteller, Bretez begins each painting with a poem to incorporate an additional layer of dialogue between the work, the viewer, and herself. Messages of hope and perseverance permeate Bretez’s work as she seeks to provide strength in the face of vulnerability.
Interview with Sophie-Yen Bretez
How has your unique cultural background influenced your artistic style and themes?
Born in Vietnam and adopted by French parents at the age of 4, my cultural context is primarily that of transracial adoption. It's a specific context in that I grew up in a white Western environment and therefore had little contact with the culture of my birth. Richard M. Lee has raised a paradox known as the 'visible adoption paradox', which is based on belonging to a minority group because of one's physical appearance and to the majority group because of one's family background.
Over the past few years, I have become aware of my particular connection to Vietnam and France: my Asian physique, my biological family whom I met in 2017, the death of my adoptive father in 2019, and other personal events have forced me to see and analyze my entire history through a political and feminist prism. From this research, I wanted to tell my story in painting, addressing all the existential, cultural, and political issues it raises: contingency, resilience, identity, memory, ambivalence, vanity. I want to tell it through my poetic, sensual approach to life, using bold, vibrant colors and lines.
What inspired you to transition from a career in management to pursuing art full time?
In the beginning, painting was simply a hobby practiced during quarantine. I had never imagined making a career out of it because I had been conditioned to follow a traditional academic path. My transition to a full-time artistic career was the result of a very pragmatic decision I had to make in order to meet deadlines for an exhibition. It was a quick decision. I took the risk of going into art because I listened to the little voice inside me. I said to myself: "What's the worst that can happen to me? Nothing. So go for it!"
Can you explain the concept of "reverse voyeurism" in your work and how it challenges societal views on the naked female body?
Portrayed as the eternal muse, the passive or perverse seductress, or the nurturing mother, the female body has been subjected to the male gaze in painting for centuries—a body painted by men for men. Based on this observation, I wanted to use reverse voyeurism to paint naked women looking directly into the viewer's eyes. It is the viewer who is being watched as they observe my naked women. They assert their strength, their vulnerability, their presence, and their freedom to dispose of their bodies. "I am naked, so what?"
With reverse voyeurism, there's a deep desire to explore the dialectic of the observed and the observer. I see my canvases as a means of expression to create a parallel world, a metaphysical box where there are no constraints on the female body. Free from all constraints, my naked women play poker, shoot archery, eat what they want, hug, bathe, read... In short, they live freely. The gaze of my figures is neither absent nor dreamy (as is often the case with Modigliani), but rather proud, profound, and sensual (like those of Frida Kahlo or Tamara de Lempicka).
How do you incorporate the themes of trauma, resilience, and recovery into your paintings?
I work on the imaginary and poetic dimension of my relationship with objects, animals, and colors. Each element present in my paintings symbolically echoes my personal history. The themes of trauma, resilience, and recovery are introduced through the symbolism of the elements incorporated into my paintings, as in the case of the lobster (symbol of metamorphosis and rebirth), the snake (symbol of control), the swallows to evoke my Vietnamese origins ('Yen' means swallow in Vietnamese), the leaf in the wind (symbol of the passing of time), and so on.
What's more, these themes are incorporated into a general theme that I depict: that of hope, the hope to overcome one's traumas, hope as an aptitude for life, the driving force behind resilience and recovery. That's why you'll often find a yellow light illuminating the skin of my characters.
What role does poetry play in your creative process, and how does it enhance the dialogue between your work and the viewer?
My work revolves around the concept of narrative identity, the ability to fit the events of one's life into a coherent narrative. This concept is based on the idea that an individual constructs his or her identity by telling a story that is constantly renewed through time and experience. It is through the narrative that we construct our existence, giving it meaning and consistency. To know who you are is to know how to tell your story, and vice versa.
The visual narrative occupies a central place in my work and is naturally accompanied by a written narrative, which I wanted to express in the form of a poem. In the beginning of my practice, I would write the poems and then paint them. This guided me in putting my poetic message into paintings. Since 2024, I’ve been doing it the other way around: I start by painting, then I write a poem based on the first image that comes to mind. I prefer the words to be constrained by the image rather than the other way around. My approach is now more visual.
These poems are intended to provide an additional level of dialogue with the viewer, to enrich and guide the way in which the work is read, while leaving the door open to interpretation.
How do the illuminated horizon lines in your paintings symbolize hope and new possibilities for those who have suffered?
Like the objects in my paintings, the horizon has a poetic and symbolic dimension. It represents the possible and the elsewhere, a salutary beyond when the here and now is too difficult to overcome. Like many people, looking at the horizon has a direct positive effect on us: it calms us down, invites us to dream and project. A line drawn in space, and the mind is immediately projected elsewhere.
What's more, my horizon lines are always drawn at sunset or sunrise, the exact moment of transition and change in the state of the world, to speak of the state we experience within ourselves.
What message do you hope viewers take away from your exploration of identity, intimacy, and empowerment in your art?
I want them to remember that women are powerful, that they don't look down, that they are free, that it is possible to turn life's trials into poetry and color. And above all, that in this cruel but beautiful world, we must keep our perseverance and hope intact.