Carole Drake Juillet was born in Scotland in 1945 to a Scottish mother and a Canadian father. After growing up in Canada, she moved to France in 1966 and became a French citizen. For the past 25 years she has lived in Provence.
She studied Art History in Canada before continuing her education in Brussels and Paris, where she specialised in the conservation and restoration of paintings.
In 1986, she successfully passed the Louvre Museum’s prestigious examination for easel-painting conservators. This achievement marked the beginning of a distinguished professional career lasting more than thirty-five years.
During this period, she had the priviledge of working on many Old Master and modern paintings dating from as early as the 14th century up to the 20th in the collections of the Louvre and numerous French national and régional museums.
This experience gave her an exceptional understanding of pigments, glazes, pictorial materials, historical painting techniques and the physical construction of a work of art.
Although conservation became her profession, painting always remained her first and foremost passion, to which she is now devoting herself.
Carole Drake Juillet’s painting is deeply rooted in colour. Influenced particularly by the Fauves and the Nabis, she uses colour to reinterpret and transcend reality.
Her palette is vibrant, using pure colour and alternative transparent glazes in order to depict the landscapes, flora and fauna of Provence, with a particular focus on her own garden.
Her style is spontaneous, energetic and highly personal inspiring vitality and especially joy.
Behind this apparent freedom lies a lifetime of observation and technical experience. Her years spent examining and restoring paintings taught her how pigments interact, how light emerges from successive layers and how the material structure of a painting contributes to its expressive power.
Her artistic vision endeavours to obey to the Japanese principle of wa : the importance to live in harmony with humility.
Galerie La Citerne | 16–31 May 2026
Baux-de-Provence – France
Galerie La Citerne des Baux-de-Provence presented 28 works during a solo exhibition depicting mainly local landscapes and flora surrounding her home in Maussane-les-Alpilles.