the artist and her story

Aurélie Hartmann was born in Paris in 1995. She grew up in the Latin Quarter, studied at the prestigious Lycée Henri IV, took violin lessons with Dominique Valgalier, and studied dance at the Gabriel Fauré Conservatory. She has also been drawing since childhood, particularly clothes. She imagined herself as a stylist, musician, or writer. Her parents, music lovers and amateur musicians, kindly encouraged her without imagining she could make a career out of it.

My grandfather, a painter, told me in 2019, when I began writing and sharing songs and poems: “When you feel it’s a necessity, then there’s no doubt.” I was moved to tears. I understood what vocation meant. For me, it’s not a particular medium, but creation in general. I love to write and sing; right now, that's what drives me. But I also love to dance, speak, improvise in all sorts of things, draw, paint… Anything is possible.

My story

My artistic calling wasn't clear from childhood. It was life experiences that allowed it to emerge.

Certainly, I grew up in an intellectual environment that greatly valued art, books, and culture. But creating, being the originator of art, beyond simply interpreting a work written by others, seemed like a completely different world.

I've always written, ever since I was little, without realizing it was something truly creative; it was more of an outlet for my emotions when they felt too intense and no one else could handle them.

The artistic journey itself isn't something I sought out or provoked; I didn't expect it. It came to me unexpectedly, because I needed it; it was a way to listen to myself, to be present, to feel close to my essence.

The first poems emerged from my romantic idealizations, from the expression of my desire, my ideal. I had hardly read any poetry, except for Baudelaire and Rimbaud because we were required to at school.

I never sought to “become” a poet. Simply, suddenly, I was one: a notebook in my hands, on which I scribbled on the tram, in the street, on the doorstep, so as not to let the words escape. Emergences. Uncontrolled outpourings.

The songs came about while I was working on my violin final exam at the Meudon Conservatory: it was 2017, and I was spending six hours a day on my instrument, between scales, exercises, and required pieces. During my breaks and daily walks, melodies would appear in my head, and I started recording them by humming. Little by little, I experimented with singing to the ukulele, then to the guitar and piano, creating chords to accompany myself. It all happened through iteration, wonder, and curiosity. No one ever suggested I do anything in this direction; I received no advice. It all came from within me, from my own desire, my natural inclination.

This is how I began to observe the bursts of inspiration and develop a visual conceptualization around the act of artistic creation: it was the beginning of the adventure Une vie jouissive (A Joyful Life), a work-in-progress manuscript that describes my "method" and approach to creation. I've shared reflections from this research on my newsletter (now called La flamme - The Flame), my YouTube channel, and my podcast Art sensible (Sensitive Art). I recently created a new podcast in English, Unsolicited Diaries, where I share my random thoughts about life, creativity and spirituality.

One of the things that has most nurtured my mindset of curiosity and openness is my daily practice of mindfulness meditation since 2015. Those years of study (2014-2018) were also a pivotal period: I was in business school, while simultaneously pursuing my classical violin studies and spiritual explorations that opened up to me following a breakup. In 2017, as I began exploring artistic creation in a free and experimental way, I discovered Nonviolent Communication, which resonated like a revelation. I committed myself to it wholeheartedly, taking every possible training course until I became an assistant on a group program in 2022.

When I was younger, I already had the intuition that I was good at conversations, because I was often told that I quickly went deep, and that I was the only person with whom we could talk about certain taboo or painful subjects. Sometimes I thought it would be nice to be able to listen again to some of the fascinating discussions I had with friends. This is how I created my first podcast in 2019, Reconnexion, based on authentic and entirely improvised conversations, which started from the question: “How have you reconnected with yourself?”. As I took pleasure in these deep and constructive exchanges, I became interested in coaching, and trained in 2020-2021, first with the International Coaching Institute, then with Yes Supply which gave me the basics of hypnotherapy and NLP. Since then, I have supported dozens of people in their career transitions, their relationships and their creativity.

Travel is certainly one of the essential components that has influenced my sensitivity, my artistic work and my ability to enter into conversation with various people. I lived for a year in London in 2015-2016, and a year in Colombia in 2018. Speaking three languages ​​allowed me to experience the complexity surrounding language and the culture attached to it, and to free myself, I believe, from part of my conditioning linked to my culture of origin. Between 2020 and 2023, I lived alternatively, in a small house in the mountains, in Ariège, first alone then with a partner. Living simply, surrounded by nature, silence, and without a car, gave me access to a degree of intensity and vitality that I never imagined. This period gave birth to a book, Tu me vois (‘You see me’), as well as dozens of songs.

I then moved to Paris to pursue my musical ambitions, only to realize the need to find a balance and harmony between my various artistic practices. In 2025, I released the EP Le syndrome de Peter Pan, distributed by Inouie Distribution.

I am currently based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

There, I continue my multidisciplinary artistic journey, which encompasses music, movement, writing, spoken word, and conversation, with improvisation as its central thread. This improvisation stems from presence to the body, to its vital instincts and urges.