Sophie Penicaud

Sophie Pénicaud looks at the near and the far. She draws the near with precision, pencil in hand, with infinite meticulousness. Nothing escapes her; the half-open window, the armchair, what the eye sees from where it looks. She favors elements and makes still lifes of them, always pleasant to look at, imbued with the sweetness of life. She establishes the "portrait" of the house like no one else, from the outside as well as from the inside. This is her Great Art.

The interiors, the views from inside, the architecture... The houses will be looked at, studied, specified, according to what her eye will perceive, and what her hand will draw masterfully. Her first training in Applied Arts is the right one for her; she will always give the balance, the right perspective, the volumes, a few chosen details...

The distance, when she looks at it, will give her the presence of poetry itself, through more blurred touches, because then, there is perspective. Indeed, if she knows how to see very closely, she also knows how to apprehend the distance, and, when she deals with landscape, we will see her original graphics, always underlying her work, create very subtle and always successful interpenetrations. Looking at these vast expanses of almost virgin nature, we enter into the presence of a depth that she has contemplated. She speaks in her landscapes, and well beyond them, of the presence, in her created world, of what is spiritual presence, and which gives itself to be seen

< CHRISTINE CHELINI >
Art Historian, Visual Artist

PAINTER / DRAWER / COLORIST

Portfolio link

spm.soph@gmail.com

sophiepenicaud.blogspot.com

instagram.com/penicaudsophie

ADAGP Images

sophiepenicaud.com

contemporaryartists.org

HOUSE OF ARTISTS N°P057641

ADAGP Copyright

• TRAINING - AWARDS

 

2022 : First Prize in Painting - Art Show Paris/EDMC Honorary Artist (Selected).

1976: Diploma from the Higher School of APPLIED ARTS - Duperré de Paris and BTS Surface Plastician

1978: Diploma from the National School of DECORATIVE ARTS (ENSAD) in Paris,

Architecture-Planning Section, TB mention

1979: Engraving at ENSAD (Arts Déco)

2012/2015: Engraving – Paris-Ateliers

 

• EXTERIOR WALL PAINTINGS

 

1989: 52m²: RATP – Metro Duroc /Paris VII

1988: 2 chimneys – Orsay University Center (Project management) 14m H (91)
150m²: PMC Company – Saint Maur (94)

185m²: Amaje – Marne-La-Vallée (77)

1987: 315m²: Mureaux Media Library (78)

1986: 36m²: Primary school wall – Garches (92)

• INTERIOR WALL PAINTINGS

 

2016: Painting on canvas (1m62 x1.14)

2015: Painting on fabric (15 m X 1.40): Théâtre St Léon Paris XV.

1995-96: 3 canvases of 45m² – Colombes Hospital (APHP) –(92)

1994: Paintings on wood, canvas and wall – Neuilly Hospital – CAMSP (92)

1993: 2 canvases of 20m² – Alfortville / Painting on glass – Bougival (92)

1992: Theater decor on paper - Paris

1989: Boulogne Billancourt (92)

1987: Emmaüs – Paris ^10th

• PAINTINGS (2) MADE IN TAPESTRY BY AUBUSSON .

1982 and 1983: Atelier Robert Four – Paris – 8 copies of each.

• COLORING, GRAPHICS, ILLUSTRATION :

Logos, posters, letterhead, announcements, leaflets, brochures, children's books, etc.

1995: Colouring of reception hall – Colombes Hospital – AP

1989: Coloring of facades – Chalons en Champagne (“3D” workshop)

1987: 18 interior mood paintings for the “Décors & Maisons” catalog – Agence Nelly Rody

1987: Creation of a color chart for BOIRO (20,000 copies)

1981: High-end brochure for office buildings (SFAP) – Design manager

• ARCHITECTURE – SPATIAL PLANNING

 

Perspective ground plan for architectural projects

1988: Decoration of a medical office – Yvelines

1985: Development project for the town hall square in the city of Antony (2000m²)

• ORGANIZATION OF EXHIBITIONS

 

1986: Georges Pompidou Center (BPI): 120m²

1979: La Rochelle Cultural Center – Assistant

1979: Lacourière-Frélaut Workshop at the Museum of Modern Art of the City of Paris – Engraving demonstration

1978: Exchange with Poland – Children’s paintings – Organizer

• OTHER ACTIVITIES

 

1989 – 1991: Responsible for exterior colors – EURODISNEY

1976 – 1989: Drawing teacher – Garches Cultural Center and MJC of Saint Cloud

1983: Colorist-illustrator – “3D-Couleurs” Agency J. Ph. Lenclos (1st international color prize)

1981: Illustrator-layout artist – SFAP Paris

1980: Designer-projector – Architectural agency, subsidiary of OGE – TP

• PERSONAL EXHIBITIONS.

 

2024: Medical office 56. 

2024 – 2021: Paris La Defense 

2018: Paris 15th arrondissement / Paris La Défense

2016: Paris 15th arrondissement / Pas de Calais / Pénestin (Morbihan)

2013: Private exhibition – Paris

2006: Château Aubry du Hainaut – North 59

2002: Galerie de Causans, rue de Seine – Paris VI

2002: Lille-CHU

2001: Beguinage Courtrai – Belgium

1990: Bernanos Gallery – Paris V

1989: Tokyo and Osaka – Japan

1984: Galerie Confluences – Paris XVIII

1983: Cultural center – Garches 92

1981: UBP Bank – Paris

1979: Agora Sèvres Gallery – Paris VI

• GROUP EXHIBITIONS

 

2022: Art Show Paris. XI. Bd Richard Lenoir / Jeanne Garnier Unit Paris XV

2021: Artists’ Fair – Suresnes

2015: Town Hall - Paris XV / Swiss Village Paris XV / Asartis Paris XV / Paris Atelier Paris III

2014: Church of St. Jeanne de Chantal (Paris XVI) /Town Hall XV

2013-15: Print Fair Place St Sulpice – Paris VI

2013: Artists’ Fair – Paris XV – Parc Brassens/Town Hall XV

2012: Town Hall – Paris I

2006: Saint Jerome Cathedral – Digne – Alpes de Haute Provence

2004: St Leu Church – Paris III

2002: Saint Géry Church – Valenciennes 59

1996-97: Nancy 54

1994: ARPA International – Paris (Salpêtrière Hospital)

1992-93-96: Belfry of the 1st arrondissement town hall – Paris / Salon de Noisy Le Roi 78 (1992)

1991: Belleville – Paris XIX

1990: Eurodisney – Marne La Vallée 77

1989: Blue City Exhibition – Paris

1987: Paray Le Monial - 71

1985: Society for the Encouragement of Artistic Crafts – Paris / French Petroleum Company – Paris

1983: Chaillot-Galliera Center – Paris VIII

1982: Cultural Center – Saint Cloud-92

1981: American Festival - Paris/Restaurant-Versailles/Cultural Center -Garches-92/Galerie Hélof Paris XV

Jean-Paul Deremble

University of Lille

Art historian

“Skies and palliative care”

Exhibition by Sophie Pénicaud

Church House, Our Lady of Pentecost. Paris la Défense

January 31 – March 8, 2024

 

 

True art is deeply rooted in human experience, even in its most tragic expressions. One might think that the search for beauty is a way to escape the darkness of life. Certainly art is a quest for light, but never indifferent to our darkness.

Sophie Pénicaud's works are a remarkable manifestation of the paradox of art, entirely marked by existential gravity and totally carrying a transcendental vision. By associating heaven and palliative care, the exhibition provokes. It invites us to see heaven in one of the most sensitive moments of our existence, the end of life precisely, and to discover in the painful ordeal of separation a luminous presence. On earth as in heaven, say Christians when speaking of God, a challenge and an act of faith.

It takes a lot of art to open the opacity of death to the light. This is what we need most to avoid sinking into despair. It is also what is most difficult if we do not want to hover in artificiality. Sophie Pénicaud accompanies her mother, with a whole team of caregivers convinced of the human necessity of gathering our humanity around the being who is dying. She is there, day after day, lavishing gestures of affection, she listens to the last words, and suddenly she receives an incredible message: the end of life is a passage, an opening. Her mother speaks of paradise.

The artist then awakens and paints a pleiad of skies with clouds whitened by an irresistible luminosity. The shapes dance according to the enchanting whims of the azure zephyrs, the infinite shades of blue envelop us according to new maternal sweetnesses.

On earth the sun sets, the mother dies, in heaven a transfiguring light rises. It is one and the same time of life which gives itself to death and of death which gives birth to a new life. How to understand this? How to express it? We have only the paradoxical coordination of opposites to throw before us a more subtle alliance.

Contemplating Sophie Pénicaud's skies, mortal life here below gains in altitude, in lightness... without ceasing to be mortal. The very fine iridescent colorings, the thickness of the immaterial clouds, the renderings of horizons that have become familiar bear witness to the Spirit of the flesh. Earthly reality is metaphorized, but paradoxically the beauty here is only worth the entire human gravity present in the graceful transparencies of the painting.