Françoise Pétrovitch: Artistry rooted in nature

Françoise Pétrovitch is a French visual artist born in 1964 in Chambéry. She works in various mediums: drawing, painting, printmaking, ceramics and video, and currently resides in Cachan. Drawing is the essence of Françoise Pétrovitch’s artistic style, characterized by the precision of her strokes and the boldness of her choice of colors. Her direct approach allows the viewer to immerse themselves in her world, capturing the freedom and spontaneity of gestures that clearly convey the artist’s ideas. She teaches at École Estienne, the Higher School of Graphic Arts and Industries (ESAIG) in Paris. This school trains young designers in the fields of printing, design, communications and book arts.

A dive into her universe

Pétrovitch explores an ambiguous, transgressive universe, defying conventional limits and refusing any clear interpretation. Her work is characterized by intimacy, fragmentation and disappearance, as well as by themes of the double, transition and cruelty, and is populated by animals, flowers and human figures. Her atmosphere, alternately luminous and nocturnal, rarely leaves the viewer unmoved.

Drawings and delicacy

Françoise Pétrovitch’s drawings, photographs, engravings, paintings and sculptures reveal an ambiguous universe where childlike imagery mingles with strange figures. Her artworks, populated by animals, flowers and human beings, explore themes of intimacy, fragmentation and transition, often imbued with an atmosphere that is both luminous and nocturnal, rarely leaving the viewer indifferent.
These blur the boundaries between masculine and feminine, human and animal. At the age of nine, she moved with her family to her paternal grandfather’s rural cottage, surrounded by dogs, donkeys or rabbits finding inspiration for her artistic creations among these animals.

Françoise Pétrovitch creates hybrid beings, both human and animal, revealing an intimacy charged with secret thoughts and wounds, evoking women, adolescents and children. She allows mystery to prevail over the origins of these unsettling scenes, which come from her inner world. In this way, anyone can freely project their subconscious and give free rein to their imagination.

Creation process

Pétrovitch prefers to draw in the middle of the day, as early as possible, to take advantage of the sunlight flooding her spacious studio, where only the rustle of the large papers and a few drops of water falling from her brush can be heard. She feels a deep need for freedom and solitude, finding refuge in the woods.

Her Specialty: Large-scale format

“A large format can be even more intimate than a small drawing.“

Some paintings are immersive, immersing the viewer in the intimacy of imaginary characters. In 2016, the artist debuted two large formats measuring 240 x 300 cm, depicting a young man and woman (Untitled, 2016) seated, their expressions mixing reverie and sulkiness. For several years now, Françoise Pétrovitch has been creating monumental wall drawings and vast ensembles, such as for the Galerie des enfants at the Centre Pompidou and the West Bund Museum in Shanghai.

Recent exhibitions

“DERRIÈRE LES PAUPIÈRES” (Oct. 2022 – Jan. 2023, Bibliothèque nationale de France) met with remarkable success, followed by exhibitions at La Louvière (Belgium), the French Institute Alliance Française in New York and the Louvre-Lens.

Her work can be found in public collections such as the Fonds national d’art contemporain and the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C., as well as in private collections such as the Fondation Salomon. In 2022, a retrospective exhibition was dedicated to her at the FHEL in Landerneau. Her work can be found in many prestigious collections, including the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Museum Voorlinden in Wassenaar, the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington DC…

Françoise Pétrovitch’s enduring influence on contemporary art

Françoise Pétrovitch leaves an undeniable legacy in public and private collections around the world, illustrating her enduring impact and ability to move and stimulate thought.