Isabelle Chapuis
SELECTED WORKS
Cocoon
Awarded by Picto Prize 2010
This is a plastic working based on research on the sticky flesh color. I wish to refer to organic matter in contrast with a decidedly aesthetic writing. Such a double skin fragile appearance, becomes a sticky filament fabric, durable and enveloping, where all transformation can take place.
THE CASATI BY ISABELLE CHAPUIS
staging of a pictorial process
Fascinated by the story of Luisa Casati, Isabelle Chapuis created a modern portrait of the famous muse.
Of all the Marchesas, Italian Luisa Casati (1881-1957) remains the most intriguing, eccentric and whimsical. According to history, she squandered her fortune in an attempt to turn her life into a work of art. She had a steady gaze and translucent skin, but the famous marchesa's true beauty resided in her imperfections.
She was a muse to many, including painters, jewelers, perfumers, designers and writers. One of the artists she inspired was Giovanni Boldini. In his portrait of the Marchesa, the subject merges with the background. Boldini dispenses with a landscape setting, choosing a neutral background instead, enlivened by the subtle and vivid touch that is characteristic of his style.
Working with yards of fabric, photographer Isabelle Chapuis sought to recreate the almost monochromatic pictorial process. She asked costume designer Aurelia Maury to hand sew a dress that emerged yet was part of a wide swath of fabric. The marchesa led a tumultuous life. In the same spirit of excess, it is hard to tell if she is emerging from the fabric or being swallowed up in its folds.
VIDEOS
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Isabelle Chapuis was born in 1982 in Paris. Since her childhood, her practice of dance and drawing of live models guides her art to the human body. Diplomed in 2005 from Penninghen, from which she graduated in Art Direction, she chose the photography as a mean of expression. Isabelle's work unfolds from artistic photography to therapeutic photography. These two dimensions nourish and reinforce each other.
Isabelle Chapuis won the Prix Picto in 2010. Two years later, her work was awarded the Bourse du Talent and exhibited in the National Library of France François Mitterrand which integrated it into its photographic collection. Since then, her works are regularly exhibited in galleries and institutions, including the 110 Galerie (Paris, 2022), the Palais Galliera (Paris, 2018), the Planches Contact festival (Deauville, 2018), the Grand Musée du Parfum (Paris, 2016), the Bettina gallery
(Paris, 2013 and 2015), the Contemporary Art Center of the Château des Adhémar (Montélimar, 2016). Her work is also exhibited in the United States at Snap Space (2015), as well as in Asia at the Galerie Paris 1839 (Hong Kong, 2016), within the month Franco-Chinese Environment (China, 2016) and French May (Hong Kong, 2013).
