Virginie Gribouilli

Virginie Gribouilli Biography

France, born 1982

Virginie Gribouilli was born in France in 1982. Through her work, she recounts the traces that we living beings, humans, animals and plants will leave in time, and what mythologies will be born from these legends in the future.

After completing her studies in applied arts in 2004, she embarked on a career as a graphic designer and illustrator, and discovered sculpture as a hobby using papier-mâché. Fate brought her into contact with cold porcelain, and it was in discovering the possibilities of this material that these skeletal silhouettes were born, thanks to experimentation and the creation of her own techniques.

In 2018, and following successful exhibitions in France and Geneva, she won an audience prize in Ville-La Grand, France, and decided to professionalize her art.

In 2021, she begins to write her mythology, and despite a young career, she is fortunate to have already created a sincere and lasting relationship with her public and shared her vision of our present and future, through science fiction.

Her work is now part of private collections in France and the United States.

Artistic approach

Looking up at the stars, I wondered about our place in the universe, the ephemeral and fleeting nature of our passage on Earth, of us living beings, humans, animals and plants. Our existence is limited to a time, a period, an era. What will remain of it... a trace, a vestige, a fossil. Memory also disappears, and from this vacuum of information, new mythologies are born to tell future civilizations about a past tinged with facts, but above all with legends.

Inspired by science fiction, with the dystopian futures of Dan Simmons and Isaac Asimov, video games, with Shigeru Miyamoto's fantastic universe blending nostalgia, adventure and poetry, and the worlds of Albator and Ulysse 31 that lulled my childhood, I'm part of a surrealist fantasy movement. Following in the footsteps of Canadian artist Ellen Jewett, or Japanese sculptor Akishi Ueda, sculptors who put animal and legendary creatures at the heart of their work, I create an original aesthetic describing a new temporal dimension.

I wanted to create my own mythology based on two axes of representation: The legacy of human civilizations in the future and the temporality of living beings on Earth.

Figurative sculpture was the best way to bring this myth to life. It was my encounter with cold porcelain that allowed me to delve deeper into its lightness and finesse. I combine it with wire, resin and cardboard, and enjoy creating my own techniques and mixtures. I work with colors such as rust, verdigris and oxidized metal, reminiscent of the past, but also with black and metallic to add a precious touch to my work.

The viewer, attracted by the airy, fantastical aesthetic, finds himself projected into a future where our history is told in the past tense, through a sensitive, guilt-free animist mythology. It's a surreal vision of our world as we know it, which can bring a certain nostalgia and a new outlook on everything around us.