STATEMENT
The mountains above Port-au-Prince, Haiti were my childhood get-aways while my formal primary education took place amidst the busy hubbub of the capital city. It was these trips to the Haitian countryside that cultivated my love of the natural world.
As a child I drew everything in sight but it took many diversions for me to find my path.
I went on to study Business in New York City, including a Masters in Finance, and though I had a successful career in International Banking, my passion for art drew me to formally study painting at the Art Students League, gravitating toward working in oil, charcoal, pastels, watercolor and printmaking. I’ve been an artist since then.
My paintings are inspired by the vistas of my travels and experiences and as such, I think of myself as a landscape painter. In painting the Haitian landscape, however, scenes would frequently be incomplete without people, which I often include a market woman balancing a load on her head or vending her produce from the road.
I don’t limit myself to my childhood and cultural inspirations. Landscapes and humanscapes that I paint are all around me; they’re the walkways of Central Park, lush hills in southern France, the sea-misted terrain of Massachusetts’s Nantucket & Cape Cod Islands or the evocative slave building ruins on St. Simon Island, Georgia
Contrasting light that affects the scene is something I carefully select for. With some scenes I don’t add anything; everything is observed. Others, I use my artist’s eye to augment, but always, employing a strong use of multiple colors, preferring to derive shades and hues that best suit the scene.
Nature is pure joy to me; I am fascinated by the challenge of being able to convey to the viewer my feelings about the scene through the use of composition, color and light. The painting must express both a visual as well as emotional sensations. Color helps me express the mood of the subject, be it tranquility or excitement.
BIOGRAPHY
Yolène Legrand was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti and now resides in New York. Although she originally pursued a business career (she has a Master’s degree in Finance and was an international banker for many years), her artistic interest has always remained strong. She eventually enrolled at The Art Students League of New York where she studied anatomy and figure drawing with the late Kay Hazelip and oil painting with late noted colorists Peter Homitzky and Leatrice Rose. She also attended David Leffel portrait painting workshop and studied printmaking techniques at the League including etching, aquatint, linocut, monotype, etc. She is now a recognized international artist and muralist.
Ms. Legrand taught art at the Brooklyn Museum and at other educational institutions and has conducted painting and drawings workshops. Various corporations, individuals and other organizations collect her paintings and her work is in the Brooklyn Museum Haitian Arts collection and the Smithsonian Museum of American History, Graphic Arts collection
MEMBERSHIPS & AFFILIATIONS
Member New York Society of Women Artists
Former Board First Vice President and Treasurer of Audubon Artists Society
Life Member of The Art Students League of New York
Member of American Alliance of Museums
Art du pastel en France (former member)
Allied Artists of America (former member)
Pastel Society of America (former member)
Award Juror Weill Cornell Medical Library Art Gallery Staff Exhibition 2014
PRIZES & HONORS
Elaine & James Hewitt Memorial Award in Oil at Audubon’s
64th Annual Juried Exhibition 2006
Recipient 2005 Toussaint L’Ouverture Business Award as
Haitian-American
Proclamation by the Manhattan Borough President at City Hall 9/27/04
Winner of LMCC Manhattan Community Arts Fund grant 2000