Fabienne verdier biography definition

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This vertical painting technique allows Verdier’s mark making to be a product of the body moving freely, not restricted by the weight of the brush, playing with gravity. Begun in 2012, the series has gone through several stages of development and is the continuation of the artist’s exploration of the idea of the ‘trait’ (a line drawn, in French).

Hommage aux millions de victimes de la pandémie de Covid.
• Séance de peinture.

Creative process Verdier’s creative process most often involves three phases. Painting becomes a place to experiment with gravity, flow, vibration, and electromagnetic, light and sound waves. Multiple layers of glaze are initially built up, adding a translucency and vibrancy to the surface of each canvas.

A tribute to the millions of victims of the Covid pandemic.
• Une séance de peinture. The paintings combine the influence of Action painting with more meditative, theoretical concepts of unity, spontaneity, asceticism and other aspects of an Eastern trajectory of art history.


Verdier’s physical and performative creative practice has undergone an evolution in recent years that can be seen most vividly in the Rhythms and Reflections series.

  • Pèlerinage aux monts des intentions, 2006
    Ink, pigments and varnish on canvas
    135 × 160 cm
    Musée national d’art moderne, Centre Pompidou Collection, Paris

  • Méditations en cobalt, 1997
    Homage to variations without a theme of Yehudi Menuhin
    Cobalt Ink, pigments, varnish and cinnabar seals on silk canvas
    180 × 260 cm
    Musée Cernuschi Collection, Paris

  • La Faille, 2014
    Installation of a monumental painting in Majunga Tower, La Défense
    12 × 8 m
    Photographs by Philippe Chancel

    • SOLO EXHIBITIONS (selected)

    2025 « Mute », Cité de l’architecture et du patrimoine, Paris (F)
    (direction Jean-Roch Bouiller, commissariat Mathieu Poirier)
    2025 « Poétique de la ligne », Domaine de Chaumont-sur-Loire (F)
    (direction Chantal Colleu-Dumond, commissariat Guillaume Logé)
    2024 « Rainbows Paintings », Valode & Pistre, Paris (F)
    (commissariat Denis Valode)
    2024 « Horizons et chênes-lièges », Galerie Lelong & Co., Paris (F)
    2024 « Retables », Galerie Lelong & Co., Paris (F) et Waddington Custot Gallery, London (UK)
    2023 « La Mouvance de la matière (collection Marielle & Marina Saradar) », château Lynch-Bages, Pauillac (F)
    (direction Jean-Charles Cazes)
    2023 « Energy Lines », Christie’s Dubai and Custot Gallery Dubai (UAE)
    (direction Megan Kelly Horsman, commissariat Suzy Sikorski et Isore de Roquefeuil)
    2022 « Le Chant des étoiles », musée Unterlinden, Colmar (F)
    (direction Pantxika De Paepe, commissariat Frédérique Goerig-Hergott)
    2022 « Im Auge des Kosmos », Saarlandmuseum, Moderne Galerie, Sarrebrücken (D)
    (direction Andrea Jahn, commissariat Mona Stocker)
    2022 « Alchimie d’un vitrail », musée Camille Claudel, Nogent-sur-Seine (F)
    (direction Cécile Bertran, commissariat Agnès Werly)
    2021 « Arias, nouvelles estampes », Galerie Lelong & Co., Paris (F)
    2020 « Vortex », Waddington Custot Gallery, London (UK)
    2020 « Solstices », Galerie Lelong & Co., Paris (F)
    2019 « Sur les terres de Cézanne », retrospective, musée Granet, Aix-en-Provence (F)
    (direction et commissariat Bruno Ely)
    2019 « L’Atelier nomade », musée du Pavillon de Vendôme, Aix-en-Provence (F).

    Research into the waves and body of matter.

    2007 – Fondation Hubert Looser
    • Dialogue with American Abstract Expressionism. In an intensely physical process, Verdier uses painting tools of her own invention, largescale, custom-made brushes, funnels and other implements suspended from her studio ceiling. Dialogues.    , 2016
    Group exhibition Folkwang Museum, Essen, Germany

  • Königsklasse II, 2014
    Group Exhibition at Herrenchiemsee Palace
    Gallery No.

    5

  • Königsklasse II, 2014
    Group Exhibition at Herrenchiemsee Palace
    Gallery No. 5

  • The Hubert Looser Collection,
    Group exhibition at Kunsthaus, Zurich
    7 June › 8 September 2013
    Photograph from the Mark Kidel Film

  • The Hubert Looser Collection,
    Group exhibition at Kunsthaus, Zurich
    7 June › 8 September 2013
    Photograph from the Mark Kidel Film

  • The Hubert Looser Collection,
    Group exhibition at Kunsthaus, Zurich
    7 June › 8 September 2013
    Photograph from the Mark Kidel Film

  • The Hubert Looser Collection,
    Group exhibition at Kunsthaus, Zurich
    7 June › 8 September 2013
    Photograph from the Mark Kidel Film

  • Fabienne Verdier Meets Sigmar Polke: Talking Lines,
    August, 2017

    • WORKS IN RESIDENCE

    2018 Atelier nomade, Aix-en-Provence : commande de Bruno Ely, musée Granet
    2017 Festival international d’art lyrique d’Aix-en-Provence : commande de Bernard Foccroulle
    2015-2017 Installation multimédia au musée Voltaire à Genève : commande d’Alexandre Vanautgaerden
    2014 Résidence à The Juilliard School, New York : réalisation de 187 capsules picturales filmiques

    WORKS IN ARCHITECTURE

    2025 Dans le cadre du Grand Paris, commande d’une œuvre monumentale pour la gare Vert de Maisons (Maisons-Alfort et Alfortville) en tandem avec l’architecte Denis Valode
    2023 Commande de deux fresques pour les quais de la nouvelle station Toots Thielemans du métro de Bruxelles
    2023 Commande du Mobilier national pour la création d’une tapisserie en hautelisse aux ateliers des Gobelins et d’un tapis aux ateliers de Lodève
    2022 Vitrail au sein du musée Camille Claudel, Nogent-sur-Seine
    2021 Vitrail de la chapelle de l’Hôtel-Dieu-le-Comte, Cité du Vitrail, Troyes
    2018 Vitraux du chœur de l’église de Nogent-sur-Seine
    2014 Tour Majunga, architecte Jean-Paul Viguier, Paris La Défense
    2010 Palazzo Torlonia, Rome

    Graphic Works

    2024 Création de l’affiche du Printemps des poètes
    2018 Création de l’affiche du tournoi de Roland-Garros
    2017 Création de l’affiche du Festival international d’art lyrique d’Aix-en-Provence
    1998 Création de l’affiche du Festival d’Avignon

    .

    These paintings were made following Verdier's return to France from a period of intense experimentation spent as the first visual artist-in-residence at The Juilliard School in New York in 2014.

    fabienne verdier biography definition

    We ourselves are rhythms steeped in the great universal rhythm.  As the Mexican poet Octavio Paz once said: ‘Rhythm is not a tempo: it is a vision of the world.’”


    If this new series offers Reflections, the Walking Paintings are composed as a ‘lightning strike’. As the paint falls, the raw energy of the artist walking on the painting is translated onto the canvas, making nature’s intangible forces tangible.


    Verdier’s paintings feature in several private and public collections including the Centre Pompidou, Cernuschi Museum, Pinakotek der Moderne and Foundations Hubert Looser, François Pinault and Palazzo Torlonia.

    Finally, standing directly on the stretcher and using tools of her own invention, she shapes the paint matter to express fundamental life forces. After becoming the first foreign woman to be awarded a post-graduate diploma in fine arts by the institute, Verdier began to progressively create her own new abstract painting. Entrée dans les collections du Kunsthaus de Zurich.

    2009 – Palazzo Torlonia, Rome
    • Commande de quatre peintures monumentales pour la restauration du palais.

    2009-2013 – Primitifs flamands
    • Dialogue avec les Primitifs flamands : création d’un corpus d’œuvres combinant la vibration des glacis traditionnels et le flux libre du pinceau.

    Creation of twenty-two polyptychs inspired by a dialogue of words and gestures.

    2019 – Musée Granet, Aix-en-Provence
    • Important retrospective and construction of a mobile studio: a return to painting from nature as an introspective experience. 1962, Paris) first solo exhibition in London. Entre cerveau, art et science    , with neuroscientist Alain Berthoz.

    2024 – Contemporary altarpieces
    • Exploration of the structure of the Medieval altarpiece and the creation of an important series of paintings, exhibited in Paris and London.
    • Saradar donation: nine paintings enter the Musée des Beaux‑Arts de Dijon.

    2025 – Domaine de Chaumont-sur-Loire & Centre Pompidou-Metz
    • ‘Poétique de la ligne’ exhibition at Chaumont-sur-Loire.
    Participation in the ‘Copyists’ exhibition at the Centre Pompidou-Metz.

    Her investigations have opened up a new, sensitive and visionary terrain of terrestrial energy and the imagination in contemporary art.

    Her works are present in many public collections, including those of the Musée Cernuschi, the Collection Pinault and the MNAM-Centre Pompidou in Paris; the Musée Barbier-Mueller in Genève; the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich; the National Museum in Oslo; the Kunsthaus in Zurich; the Musée Granet in Aix-en-Provence; the Musée Camille Claudel in Nogent-sur-Seine; the Musée Unterlinden in Colmar; the Saarlandmuseum in Sarrebruck and the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Dijon.

    1962 – Born in Paris
    • Her foundational intuition: painting not to fix reality but to capture fleeting movement, impermanence and an immediate perception of the world.

    1983–92 – China, Sichuan
    • Training with masters of traditional painting: spontaneity, emptiness and fullness.