I discovered Verdier’s work for myself quite by accident (as far as there are any accidents) and it was love at first sight. Her process is based in Chinese calligraphy but she is inspired by everything - poetry, music, math, philosophy, and above all movement.

“Movement is the essence of existence, of what it means to be real in the world.”

As a young woman In 1982, she felt constrained by the curriculum at the Ecole Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Toulouse which focused rigidly on academic painting. She sought a different perspective at the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute - only to find it equally limited, this time by the mandate of Socialist Realism.

Not easily deterred, Verdier persevered in the near impossible - she found masters of traditional Chinese art who at that time were suppressed by the Cultural Revolution, persuading them to guide her on a 10 year journey of learning the ancient discipline and philosophy of calligraphic painting.

She says,

The masters gave me a piece of white paper and a brush, and told me to paint my spiritual view of tree branches… They explained that there’s [sic] no good looking at a tree, or a landscape. You must, by force of contemplation, be at one with the thing you are painting.

More about this extraordinary painter and her work is on her website, https://fabienneverdier.com