At the Bottom of the Lake (Au fond du lac) (2025) Original Acrylic Painting by Séverine Loisel

A deep, immersive abstract that pulls the eye down into darkness. The palette is dominated by dense greens and near-blacks — mossy, bottle-green tones on the left that deepen into shadowy aubergine and black toward the right, as though the light is being swallowed. The surface is heavily textured: granular, encrusted passages on the left catch a faint silvery sheen, while the right side dissolves into smoother, inkier depths.
A single horizontal band of golden-yellow flecks runs across the upper third, like sunlight scattered on a distant surface far above — the one warm note in all this submerged cool. Faint scratched and scored marks flicker through the dark right-hand side, almost like cryptic writing, debris, or the ghost of structures settled on the lakebed. The bright red frame is a deliberate shock — it snaps the muted, watery interior into sharp focus.
The title and its resonance
Au fond du lac — "At the Bottom of the Lake" — captures it exactly. This is the world seen from below the surface: the cold green-black depths, the faint shimmer of light unreachably far overhead, the silt and texture of the lakebed. It evokes submersion, mystery, what lies hidden and unrecovered. Quietly haunting.
Style
Matterist, atmospheric abstraction — emotion carried by texture, depth, and a tightly held palette. The built-up granular surface recalls the material abstraction of Tàpies, while the single horizon of light gives it a contemplative, almost meditative pull.

Materials used:

acrylic, pastel

Details:

• Acrylic painting on Canvas
• One of a kind artwork
• Size: 2 x 2 x 2cm (framed)
• Framed and ready to hang
• Signed on the front
• Style: Abstract
• Subject: Abstract and non-figurative