Valérie du Chéné develops her practice of painting, installation, volume and drawing around three major topics: colour, our relationship to others, and the way in which we experience space.
Her work, which she presents both on a large scale (in exhibition spaces and in the public space in the form of wall paintings or installations) and in more intimate expressions, such as drawings, gouaches or objects, embraces a variety of configurations in which language happens to be a constant yet discreet presence.
The gestures of uncovering and covering are present throughout her practice, whether from a physical point of view (covering surfaces in paint to make them visible) or a symbolic one (uncovering the truths and mechanisms of life).
She has collaborated with the historian Arlette Farge for many years, building a conversation around text and image, and for some years now with the artist Régis Pinault on several projects involving cinema, volume work and painting.

Translated by Lucy Pons
Biographical notes translated with the support of the Centre national des arts plastiques

Les films

Michelangelo Antonioni, Le désert rouge
Chantal Akerman, Saute ma ville
Pier Paolo Pasolini, Comizi d’amore
Fernand Deligny, Le moindre geste
Alain Guiraudie, Ce vieux rêve qui bouge
Les Shadoks

Les Lectures

Arlette Farge, Le goût des archives
Georges Perec, Lieux
Gertrude Stein, The Making of Americans
Fernand Deligny, Graines de crapules
Derek Jarman, Chroma, un livre de couleurs

Les artistes

Les Primitifs italiens, en particulier Giotto, Pietro et Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Simone Martini
Bruno Munari
William Kentridge
Pierre Huygues, Blanche neige (vidéo, 4mn, 1997)
Ann Veronica Janssens
Raoul de Keyser
Etel Adnan
Judy Chicago
Derek Jarman, Blue

Les citations

« Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose”, Gertrude Stein dans Sacred Emily
« L’espace est un doute : il me faut sans cesse le masquer, le désigner;
il n’est jamais à moi, il ne m’est jamais donné, il faut que j’en fasse la conquête” George Perec dans Espèces d’espaces