Born in Nancy in 1941, Simone Pheulpin grew up in the Vosges. It is the landscapes of lakes and mountains of this land of textiles that she revisits between the folds of her works and the thousands of pins that support them. Self-taught, the artist has developed her own technique, which she has been perfecting for almost 50 years.
Through her original and innovative practice, she continues to support the French tradition by using exclusively cotton from one of the last Vosges factories, but also pins from the last French sewing pin factory.
The works of Simone Pheulpin, represented by the maison parisienne gallery, have entered the public collections of several institutions: the Art Institute of Chicago in the United States (2018), the Victoria and Albert Museum in London (2018) and the Musée Decorative Arts (2019 then 2021).
In 2015, the Fondation des Ateliers d’Art de France awarded him the Prix Le Créateur, which rewards creativity and modernity as well as the ability of artists to imagine an exhibition project. In 2017, she received the Grand Prize for Creation from the City of Paris, awarded by the City of Paris, in the Crafts category and the exhibition “Un monde de plis” is dedicated to her at the Chapelle Expiatoire. In 2018, the Loewe Foundation in London rewarded the artist's work by awarding him the Loewe Craft Prize Honorary Prize.
The mastery of sculptural work demonstrated by Simone Pheulpin allows her to transform the simplest material – strips of raw cotton fabric – into works that are alternately coral, shell, moss, bark, fossilized stone, or even ivory, reflection of the materials, textures and patterns that inspired the artist. Mono-material, monochrome, his work opens up an infinity of possibilities of shapes and volumes. This long and meticulous work of stacking, rolling up, tightening constitutes for her a meditative process. Concealing the tangled pins that hold his sculptures together, the ecru fabric only reveals an organic trompe-l'oeil.
Simone Pheulpin, time bender, from December 7, 2021 to January 16, 2022, at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, 107, rue de Rivoli, 75001 Paris, www.madparis.fr
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