Biography

Isabelle Bonzom is a visual artist, a painter and a muralist. Her studio is located near Paris. Born in France on the 31st of December, 1964, in a family combining French, Italian and Spanish origins, she earned a DNSEP, the equivalent of a Doctorate, in painting and art, from the École Régionale des Beaux-Arts de Rennes (Brittany). Selected as an artist-in-residence at the International City of the Arts in Paris, she studied at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts for a three-year post-diploma.

"Isabelle Bonzom has developed themes as varied as urban forests, meats and nudes. But the invariant thread is her concern with incarnation. She paints the fluid evolution of the flesh, the turmoil of bodies and their passages," writes art critic Pierre Sterckx. Read Approach.

In 1992, the Museum of Saint-Maur, near Paris, invited Isabelle Bonzom for her first solo and on site show "Leaf to Leaf - Face to Face". In 1996, the Museum of the Island of Noirmoutier, in the West of France, gave her carte blanche to do an on site project related to its collections. In 1998, she was invited to participate in l’Art dans les Chapelles in Brittany, a contemporary art show sponsored by the Ministry of Culture. In Paris, she exhibited at the Chapelle Saint-Louis de la Salpêtrière.

The French Ministries of Justice and Culture jointly commissioned Isabelle Bonzom for an ensemble of 30 mural paintings at the Jailhouse of Saint-Malo, on the coast of Brittany, in 2000. A catalogue and a video document that project. She also works with corporations. Near Paris, she created an ensemble of wall paintings for Metaplan, a German consulting firm. Watch the video Animal

At the Château d’Ardelay, the Art Center of the City of Les Herbiers, in Vendée, Western France, Isabelle Bonzom presented, in 2003, a personal exhibition of 70 paintings gathered in two main themes : paintings about flesh and landscapes. A catalogue published in conjunction with that show includes essays by art philosophers and historians, read Articles.

She participated in the Art Brussels contemporary art fair with the Taché-Lévy Gallery. In 2006, this Belgian gallery also organized a show in the gallery space entitled Three painters: Isabelle Bonzom, Caroline Lejeune and Julie Polidoro. The same year, was published the catalogue Le Vif du Sujet/The Heart of the Matter based on a conversation between art critic Pierre Sterckx and the artist.

Isabelle Bonzom is part of a prestigious group of contemporary artists whose work has been selected by UNESCO Editions, including American Wayne Thiebaud and British Howard Hodgkin. Grégoire de Gaulle organized in his parisian gallery two solo shows by Isabelle Bonzom. The second, in 2008, entitled Love explosion, celebrated Isabelle Bonzom’s vivacious painting which proposes a constructive and loving vision of painting. The Peirce Gallery showed about 20 paintings by Isabelle Bonzom at the Art London Fair (UK). In Paris, the Peirce gallery organized, in 2009, a solo exhibition featuring more than 40 works of the artist: the Trans-Paysage exhibit traced a pictorial journey that the artist has developed on the iconographic theme of the landscape.

Also in 2009, her artwork was shown in South Korea for the first time. In Seoul, the 1-2-3 Gallery presented a trio of artists in which Isabelle Bonzom was the only Westerner, the only female artist and the only painter. The Parisian gallery Briobox, near Beaubourg, represented Isabelle Bonzom's painting in 2011. Since 2012, Isabelle Bonzom's work is represented by the gallery Boissière-Gomendio which has organized Traverses (March-April 2013), the latest solo show of Isabelle Bonzom's work. More info in News and Exhibitions.

In 2010, the Château d'Ardelay proposed an unprecedented exhibition, Jouvences (Jubilations) : Carte blanche given to art critic Pierre Sterckx. Were gathered for the first time some of the most renowned contemporary living artists such as Tony Cragg, Julie Mehretu, Christopher Wool, Charles Sandison and Eric Fischl. Among the 23 artists of different nationalities selected by Pierre Sterckx was Isabelle Bonzom. At Jouvences exhibit, Isabelle Bonzom showed two paintings and was invited to give a talk that she entitled Delicious gravity, jubilation in painting. "Jubilation in art is a serious matter", said the artist, as she talked about her approach as a painter. She provided her thoughts on the notion of vitalism in art. She has also discussed her correspondence on the topic with painter and sculptor Eric Fischl.

Isabelle Bonzom writes on art. She authored La fresque, art et technique (Ed. Eyrolles), an in-depth look at the art of fresco painting from a technical, aesthetic and historical viewpoint. She is one of the rare contemporary artists who master fresco painting and for this book, she draws on her own practice of fresco and her expertise as an art historian. She has also written an essay on Ten Breaths, ensemble of sculptures by Eric Fischl. The New York Academy of Art invited her to lecture in September 2010: her talk, "Off with their heads!", was based on her research about the fragmentation of the body and the image. In 2012, she gave two lectures in New York City, one at the New York Academy of Art entitled "Painting as adventure" and another one at the Baruch College, the City University of New York, invited by art historian and Distinguished Professor, Gail Levin, to talk about her experience as a painter. More info in Writings on art and in Site-specific art .

Paintings by Isabelle Bonzom are held by public museums and collections, private collectors and corporations in France, Belgium, Germany, England, the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, Costa Rica, Mexico, Japan, South Africa, South Korea, Israel, Canada and the United States.