Bucolics

This project was launched by Natalia Gomendio and Virginie Boissière of the Galerie Boissière-Gomendio as part of L'art dans la Vie.

Located on the island of La Jatte, between Neuilly and Paris-La Défense, the Paul Parquet Foundation (Fondation Paul Parquet) for sick and abused children is based in a large manor built in 1924 and surrounded by a park. The mural art program painted on the first floor of the foundation manor was created by artist Isabelle Bonzom.

The artist often paints on site, has a solid experience in the field of wall painting and has long explored the role of painting in the real space. Trained in fresco at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts of Paris, Isabelle Bonzom teaches mural painting and is the author of « La fresque, art et technique », a reference book on fresco published by Éditions Eyrolles.

She paints directly on and according to site in private and public spaces. In 2000, the French ministries of Culture and Justice commissioned to her an ensemble of mural paintings for a jailhouse, the Maison d’Arrêt de Saint Malo. The artist understands the therapeutic dimension of painting, especially when painting is created for and integrated into a site where people live.

At the Paul Parquet Foundation, Isabelle Bonzom was sensitive to the geographical location and the mission of the institution. The artist views the Foundation as an intermediary space, surrounded by water and tucked between city and country. She also views the site as a transitory space where children rebuild themselves.

The wall on which the foundation management wanted to see a mural painting is more than 10 square meters (32 square feet). Located at the heart of the institution, this wall is a place of passages and activities. Isabelle Bonzom has punctuated the space with several paintings, not only on that wall but also on adjacent walls, particularly in the central grand staircase of the manor house.

For this project, the artist has worked on themes related to the vegetal kingdom (its ramifications, and luxuriance of shapes and colors) and the animal kingdom (its dynamics, shapes and textures, its body movements and its suppleness).This ensemble of paintings aims to suggest the sense of adaptation, flexibility, a world of metamorphoses as well as the realm of what is possible. The project is in harmony with the environment and mission of the Foundation. The mural art program conceived and painted by Isabelle Bonzom creates an aesthetic, recreational, pedagogical and social bond in the context of Paul Parquet Foundation.