(born in Paris 1962)
Ligne espace - temps no. 5, polyptic (10), 2009, titled, signed, dated and insribed on the reverse, pigments and ink on canvas and wood, 240 x 304 cm

Provenance:
Galerie Jeanne Bucher, Paris (label on the reverse)
European Private Collection

Exhibited:
Paris, Galerie Jeanne Bucher, Fabienne Verdier Painting, 23.10.2009 – 9.01.2010, exh. cat., pp. 54-55, ill.

Standing on the canvas that covers a majority of the studio floor, the artist grips the bicycle-like handlebars to move the enormous paintbrush, suspended from the ceiling and carrying up to 68 litres of paint.

As her unique method proves, Fabienne Verdier is no conventional painter. Yearning to “master the notion of spontaneity in painting” and dissatisfied with the arts education available in her native France, Verdier moved to China in 1984, at the age of 22, to study at the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute. “I was fascinated by the illustrations of the works by Chinese painting masters,” she recalls. “The purity and incredible dynamism of the lines, and the spiritual freedom exuded from them propelled me to leave for China.”

For 10 years, Verdier studied under master calligraphers and painters, including her late mentor Master Huang Yuan, who taught her to discover a new form of abstraction via Chinese calligraphy. “My Western aesthetic knowledge was totally put to question,” she says.
Now based back in France, Verdier is one of the only Western artists known for employing a Chinese medium in her art, and to great success. In addition to solo exhibitions throughout Europe and Asia, Verdier’s work is also part of the collections owned by institutions such as the Centre Pompidou and the Foundation François Pinault in Paris, and the Chinese Ministry of Culture in Beijing.

Both French and Chinese, traditional and modern, spontaneous and planned—her work itself is a dialogue about the dichotomies inherent in life. “We have within us both rationalism and intuition; we are torn between analytical rigour and total spontaneity; divided between a necessity to calculate and to imagine without constraint,” she explains. “From these apparent contradictions come energy and the meaning of life itself. It is this tension that runs through all of us that I aim to explore in my work.”
Kim Reyes, Traditional Chinese calligraphy and abstract expressionism collide in French artist Fabienne Verdier’s energetic yet harmonious
paintings, in: Harpersbazaar, February 18, 2015.