WALL PAINTINGS&ON
SITE WORK |
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For Isabelle Bonzom, painting can be everywhere. On the surface of a canvas as well as on a piece of architecture, whether outside or inside. That is why Isabelle Bonzom has been painting on site since 1987. Her murals are painted freehand and alla prima. When she paints on a wall, Isabelle Bonzom does not aim at covering it entirely. Instead, she plays with the texture and color of the wall and takes in account the ensemble formed by the building. Therefore, her mural paintings punctuate the space and suggest a world of metamorphosis, motion and evolution.
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Metaplan consulting group, French headquarters, Chatou, France
German company Metaplan gave Isabelle Bonzom carte blanche to paint on the walls of an historic orangery located in the gardens of its French headquarters in Chatou, near Paris. For Metaplan, Isabelle Bonzom created a pictorial journey, entitled "Animal", in relation to the way staff members and guests work and relax in the space. The ensemble of paintings evokes animals big and small interacting with the environment and visible from offices and conference rooms. Each painting is conceived as an invitation to daydream and expand the imagination.
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Jailhouse of Saint-Malo, Brittany, France In 2000, the French ministries of Justice and Culture joined forces to commission Isabelle Bonzom to do an on-site mural project in a jail as part of their objectives of prisoner rehabilitation. In the jailhouse of Saint-Malo, on the coast of Brittany, Isabelle created a comprehensive pictorial program specific to the space and its residents and inspired by the theme of the sea.
Volunteer inmates participated in one portion of the project. Trained by Isabelle Bonzom, they painted on the walls of their computer room, in the stairways of their prison and in the corridor leading to the visitors'area. Isabelle worked on the three floors on the large detention area
where the cells are located. She creates relationships between
floors. Her 26 images, that she painted in oil on the walls, suggested
a process of positive transformation and evoked adaptation and
flexibility. A catalogue and a film document this unique mural experience in a prison. Featured in the catalogue is a conversation between Isabelle Bonzom and art critic/psychotherapist Paola Cocchi. Click here to read the French catalogue. Below,
an extract of the movie which shows the wall paintings done by
Isabelle Bonzom at the Jailhouse of Saint-Malo, please wait during
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Watercolors
on the walls, a tribute to Winsor McCay, |
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Working on a commission from art and cartoons collectors, Isabelle Bonzom referred to one of her favorite cartoonists, Winsor McCay, father of the fictional character Little Nemo who lives cock-and-bull stories during his sleep. In 2003, she painted, in 6 rooms of a house in Provence, scenes inspired by that comic strip published between 1905 and 1914, in the New York Herald and the New York American newspapers.
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Private house, Neuilly, France Following her being selected to appear at the Salon of Montrouge in 1993, Isabelle Bonzom was given carte blanche by one of the Salon visitors, an art collector and a real estate developer who invited her to paint in one of his properties, a vacant and run-down manor in Neuilly. Located near the river Seine, the Jardin of Bagatelle and the Jardin d'Acclimation, this large property inspired Isabelle to explore the iconographic theme of the animal which, as it animates the walls of the house and its garden, reclaims ownership of the space. Below, extract:
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Hovine dye factory, Rennes, Brittany, France In 1987, Isabelle Bonzom created her first mural project. In the old Hovine dye factory, she painted 17 paintings on various surfaces found throughout the building: steel doors, wood panels and beams, stone and coated walls. From the building entrance to the attic, her paintings, as they enter its very corners, interact with the space and its context and, as they take the viewer by surprise, play with the meaning of reality.
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Fresco Workshop in Provence |
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