During the summer of 2023, Fabienne Verdier spent some time in Corsica, in the bay of Porto Vecchio. From the house she occupied, she could observe the pine forest, the cork oaks [chênes-lièges] and, beyond the rocky coast, the islands and the horizon of the sea.
To draw the world is first to see it. To look at it intensely, for a long time, to really see it. These drawings were not made on the spot. They are not instantaneous reproductions of the forms that the artist has in front of her. They are reconstructions of things seen, from all angles, at different times of day, close up or at a distance.
Twisted pines, junipers, cork oaks, rocks, yews, buds; things seen and experienced, remembered, interiorized and reinvented by the purity of a fine pastel line and the boldness of a simple collage of blue tape to sum up the infinite variety of the sea.
In parallel with the Horizons and "Chênes-lièges" exhibition, the firm Valode & Pistre architectes is presenting thirteen large paintings by Fabienne Verdier, the "Rainbows", on show at the Musée Unterlinden in Colmar during the summer of 2022.
Valode & Pistre architectes has a long history of working with artists. In 2006, it was Denis Valode himself who designed and built Fabienne Verdier's studio near Paris. He understood and even anticipated the artist's needs by creating the immense pit in which Verdier paints, wielding her gigantic suspended brushes. While respecting the architectural spirit of the village, he has created an ideal working space for a completely new and unusual artistic practice. Today, the journey has reversed course, with the Verdier’s work now slipping into the creative world of the architects.
