Naxi III (1), 2024

Cécile Girard  

Cécile Girard is a French artist born in Paris. Currently, she resides between France and China. Based in Shanghai since 2009 to teach fine arts, she works on her ink technique with contemporary and traditional Chinese painters, which enriches her works.

She discovered traditional painting in the 1990s when she studied calligraphy at the Chinese Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing after studying painting and art history in Paris, at school Martenot then at the Louvre school and at La Sorbonne.

Painter and teacher in Shanghai, her art workshop for Chinese and foreign students of all ages allows her to exhibit regularly in China and France.

In 2005, Cécile was selected for the France-China Cross Years 2003-2005 and presented a personal exhibition of her works at the Beijing Art Museum.

Between 2012 and 2015, she collaborated with the China Pavilion in Shanghai as well as Shanghai University, including lectures and publications at Shanghai Normal University.

In 2014, she participated in two exhibitions, at the Shanghai Mint Museum and in a group exhibition - with Chinese artists - in France and China, celebrating the 50th anniversary of relations between the two countries.

His works are present in the permanent collections of the Beijing Art Museum and the Duolun Museum of Modern Art in Shanghai.

Since 2012, she has also been involved in solo and group exhibitions with renowned Chinese institutions, such as the China Central Academy of Fine Arts and the Xi'an Academy of Fine Arts.

In 2016, she had a joint exhibition, "Ross Lewis and Cécile Girard in Conversation", and a group exhibition at the ArtCN Gallery in Shanghai.

Finally, since 2019, she has collaborated with Galerie Xixi in China and since 2022, with Galerie Feng Shang in France.

The “Landscapes of China" exhibition celebrates the 60th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between France and China in 2024.

Cécile Girard's paintings emerged from travels and encounters between Asian and Western civilizations.

Following a trip to China in the province of Anhui, Cécile decided to use a special local Xuan rice paper, made to measure and in the tradition of

Great Masters. By kneading, crumpling and thickening the rice paper, she gave it new life with a dense, textured, dimensional and yet flexible form.

His processing technique combines Chinese ink, acrylics and oil in bright, deep colors producing a rich artistic edet.

The inspirations behind these works are drawn from primitive Chinese characters and the use of pictograms of the Naxi minority of Dongba culture. The choice of shades, blue-greens and orange-reds, come from the landscapes of Yunnan with the use of the Zhongcai Hua technique or dense color painting. The emphasis is placed on the contours in the manner of Chinese calligraphy as well as the borrowing of constituent elements of the Chinese landscape. The division of space is inspired by the principle used in ancient Chinese claustras, principles converging with those of the treatment of light in the Italian Art of stained glass.

Cécile Girard creates her own pictorial vocabulary, a fusion of images expressing emotions and reflections using various elements and symbols from ancient China and Western aesthetics.