ISABELLE BONZOM

BY NATURE

Paintings by Isabelle Bonzom

oil, watercolor and buon fresco

Solo show at the Hôtel-Dieu, art center of Château-Landon (Île de France)

September 30 - October 15, 2023

Isabelle Bonzom's art is a total immersion in the world of painting and color-light, a loving, vitalist look at others and the environment. The artist engages the viewer's perceptions and meditation. She comprehends the world through sensoriality, meaning through the senses.

Isabelle Bonzom masters oil painting, watercolor and buon fresco, the art of painting with pigments and water on a fresh and wet coat of lime and sand. She is one of the very few fresco artists in France and the founder of Pari(s) Affresco, a non-profit organization dedicated to fresco painting. She is also the author of the reference book "La fresque, art et technique".

For the artist, painting has no limits: it can be anywhere, on paper, canvas, wood or wall. Painting is a dialogue with the support, the environment and the viewer.

Views of the exhibition :

Many of her series reflect on the human body (particularly the male body) and its environment. Thus, in the watercolor above from the "Into water" series, she evokes the symbiosis between human being and the elements, creating an incessant interplay of metamorphoses.

A graduate of the Beaux-Arts in Rennes, Isabelle Bonzom completed her post-graduate training at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Spotted by artist Henri Cueco, she joined his studio while working at the Beaux-Arts fresco workshop run by Bernard Delamarche. As an artist, she practices a multidisciplinary approach, enlightened by her graduate studies in art philosophy and art history.

Her first exhibitions took place in institutional settings. The Musée de Saint-Maur in the Paris region, then the Musée des Arts et Traditions de l'île de Noirmoutier gave her carte blanche to create work in a dialogue with their collections. 

Isabelle Bonzom’s paintings are shown in galleries in France and abroad, in art centers and in situ in institutions and alternative spaces. Her work also appears at festivals and fairs (Art Brussels, Art London, European Heritage Days).

Her art has been analyzed by philosophers, art historians and art critics such as Baldine Saint-Girons, Pierre Sterckx, Valérie Montalbetti and Colin Lemoine. 

Her readings of Epicurus, Lucretius, Bergson, Carroll and Delteil have played a major role in her personal reflection on art and life, as were her encounter with British artist Howard Hodgkin and her friendship with American artist Eric Fischl.

As a muralist and site-specific artist, Isabelle Bonzom receives public, corporate and private commissions, including from the French Ministries of Culture and the Interior who commissioned her to work at the Saint-Malo prison. 

Paintings by Isabelle Bonzom are held by private collectors and corporations (notably in France, Mexico, Belgium, Japan, Costa Rica, South Korea and the United States) and by public museums and collections in France (Saint-Maur Museum, Noirmoutier Museum, City of Les Herbiers and City of Charenton).