Alhambra 2, 2023

Brigitte Wagner  

Born in Colmar, Brigitte Wagner has been living and working in Strasbourg since her return to France some twenty years ago.

As a child, she loved to draw and paint. In high school, two teachers played an important role in her artistic development by introducing her to oil painting at the age of 12. 

After a university career in science, Brigitte Wagner taught physics in Iran. It was during the four years she spent there that her sensitivity was awakened to the art of Persian miniature painting.

Then it was in Morocco, where she spent about ten years, that the influence of the miniature forever marked her paintings of landscapes, gardens and palaces. The absence of perspective, the flattening, the finesse of the line and the poetry characterize them. His approach to painting, practiced since childhood as an autodidact, was thus transformed without his knowledge, by surprise.

"It was in Rabat, a late afternoon in January 1986.

As often, he came to the house, chatting, having a drink. That day, I don't know why, I showed him the drawings I wasn't showing.

He took a pen out of his pocket, handed it to me and said:

"Sign your drawings, you have to exhibit, I'll write the text of the invitation for you.

I was paralyzed, but I had no choice. A few months later, he handed me the text entitled Inner East. And that was the beginning of this adventure.

His name was Abdelkébir Khatibi and I thank him for that."

Since then, the countries where Brigitte Wagner travels have nourished her inspiration. On her return, she takes the brushes, dips them in gouache and starts to paint without a sketch, anywhere on the white sheet of paper, from a detail or a color. The brush, guided by the atmosphere that inhabits her, composes the small formats as she goes along. Thus, the glances are posed and superimposed, without fixing a precise point of view.

Brigitte Wagner has exhibited in particular at the Alliance Française de Rabat (Morocco), at the Aktuaryus gallery (Strasbourg) then AIDA (Strasbourg), at the Château de Caseneuve (Lubéron), at the Château d'Eguisheim (Alsace), at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, at La Fibule (Brumath).