Marie de Villepin

Born in 1986 in Washington, D.C., Marie de Villepin grew up in the United States and in India. Art was a constant feature in her upbringing as she began developing her musical and drawing skills throughout her frequent travels, filling dozens of notebooks, which allowed her to fix moments and emotions as a chronicle of her life. Growing up in a diplomatic household, Marie had the chance to surround herself with a prominent circle of poets, musicians, filmmakers, and painters, including Zao Wou-Ki, a family friend. She was inspired by influential post-war American artists, including Willem de Kooning, Cy Twombly, Joan Mitchell, and Philip Guston. In particular, she admired the musicality, freedom, and capacity for transcendence in their works.

 

In 2005, Marie moved to New York, and then to Los Angeles, where she developed various musical projects, before devoting herself entirely to painting. Seeking deeper ties between colours, sounds and rhythm, she took a decisive step to transcribe her inner world onto canvas: painting what she sees and where she lived in a way perhaps to ward off exile, loneliness and doubts through an accumulation of brushstrokes. Gradually, her whole world started taking shape, complete with imaginary landscapes, creatures, and machines of all sorts. Her works trace through space and time, oscillating between figuration and abstraction. 

 

Marie has participated in a number of group exhibitions in New York, Los Angeles, Beijing, and Hong Kong. In 2019 she presented her first solo exhibition titled New Creatures, which marked her return to Paris. In March of 2022 after the pandemic, she presented The Lost Weekend, a combination of works made in the United States and in France, followed by her first major solo exhibition, Murmuration, in Hong Kong. In June that year, Marie was selected as one of the twelve artists to receive Le Prix Antoine Marin. The prize is presented by the gallery Julio Gonzalez in Paris, where each young artist is nominated by a renowned artist: Marie was nominated by Anselm Kiefer.

 

In 2023, she presented a solo show, Behind the Sun, at the Today Art Museum in Beijing. In 2024, her works were shown at the Collection Lambert in Avignon as well as at the Zhi Art Museum in Chengdu, China. In 2024 to 2025, she continuously cooperated with galleries around the world, including a group exhibition titled The Dreams of Light at Mariane Ibrahim Gallery in Mexico City, followed by the solo show, Le Jardin Retrouvé, at Espace Muraille in Geneva.