Justine Formentelli

Having spent her formative years in the Caribbean, Réunion Island, and Morocco, Justine Formentell’s work is deeply influenced by these transitory experiences and ever- changing environments. A sense of movement and flux permeates her pieces. Through undulating forms, transparency, and layered compositions, she explores the fluid boundaries of the self grounded in a body yet constantly interacting with the surrounding world.

Although figures are absent, her work is deeply concerned with how the external world permeates us on a profound level, connecting us all through an existential flow that moves through and around us. Using transparent, watery veils of paint, she blurs the distinction between foreground and background, examining the interplay between inner self and outer world. Whether drawing inspiration from the human body, the vegetal realm, or the mineral world, Justine sets up encounters between different forms, which at times merge and fuse into one another.

Embracing the unpredictability of highly diluted paints and revealing hidden layers through erasing and sanding, her process becomes a choreography of intention and discovery.

Justine Formentelli earned her MA from City & Guilds of London Art School in 2018. She has exhibited widely in the United States and Europe, with her work featured at the London Migration Museum in 2020. She was selected for Blue Shop Gallery: Works on Paper (2020), the ING Discerning Eye (2022), and the Royal Watercolour Society (2023). Her work is part of Soho House collections as well as private collections worldwide.

In her Navigation series, Justine Formentelli explores themes of change and transition, reflecting her perception of life as a continuous journey between physical and mental spaces. Having spent most of her life abroad, she draws on personal experiences where moments of clarity, hesitation, and unexpected shifts mirror the emotional process of navigating the unknown.

Painting allows her to map these inner and outer meanderings, searching for ways to find anchorage amid constant change—whether through subtle shifts or life-altering upheavals. Colour plays an intuitive role in her process, with calming hues and vibrant bursts evoking emotional states experienced along these journeys. Inspired by the fleeting atmospheres in Hiroshige and Hokusai’s prints, Formentelli investigates impermanence and the fragility of existence.

Her materials and techniques emphasise fluidity and varying tempos to evoke movement and transformation. Transparent, watery layers of paint dissolve boundaries between foreground and background, while textures—created through sanding, erasing, and reapplying paint—mimic natural processes of erosion and accumulation. This delicate balance between intention and chance becomes a choreography of discovery, echoing the ebb and flow of life’s ever-changing terrain.